


The Crooked Kind

by kingofthings (tmrs)



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Abusive Parents, Amanda de Santa/Trevor Philips - Freeform, Cannibalism (brief mention), Eating Disorders, F/M, M/M, Michael De Santa/Amanda De Santa - Freeform, Multiple Voices, Past Suicide Attempt (mention)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:09:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 108,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmrs/pseuds/kingofthings
Summary: With the chest feeling too tight for all those goddamn feelings, Michael wishes they could do it all over again, press the rewind button of their own fucking movie. He remembers what the doctor said about not expecting a Vinewood type of life or love and realizes how that was their own way of loving, the crooked story about the love of the crooked kind.“Let’s do it then.”
Relationships: Michael De Santa/Trevor Philips
Comments: 48
Kudos: 20





	1. Tracey, 1995

**Author's Note:**

> It's a GTA fic so it's kind of impossible not to mention some sensitive subjects. Please make sure you check the tags, take care of yourself, stay safe! 
> 
> Each chapter it's from a different point of view going from 1995 to 2014.  
> Title from the song The Crooked Kind by Radical Face.  
> This fic is unbeta'd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> better late than ever, eh?  
> this started as a self indulgent list with bullet points of moments and became a 100k+ child, my biggest accomplishment of 2020. Only fair to share with the fandom that's still full of amazing people (yes I'm looking at every single one of you guys from the fanzine and from the trikey tag on tumblr, yes, you). hope you enjoy it! 
> 
> now let's press play

“Really T? I’m pretty sure she would be fine with just a talk.”

“What the fuck did you called me here for if you won’t fucking listen to me, fucking asshole?” Michael's attempt to shush him is in vain, the sound of a bag being opened echoes on the trailer walls. “She doesn’t need to be talked to, she needs to be comforted and you will do just that.”

Michael snorts and Tracey can see, from the crack of her door where she hides, his frown of confusion to the fabric Trevor holds. He shifts the weight from one of his legs to another when the man shoves the thing against his chest and shakes the head firmly.

“I’m not putting this. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Are  _ you _ fucking kidding me, Townley?”

Still shaking the head, he gives a step back while showing the palms as if Trevor was telling him to hold a bomb.

“This is over the top. I just asked for you to come here because, for some reason, she likes you and actually calms down when you talk to her. Amanda might need me to drive to the hospital to drop warmer clothes for her and Jimmy later and I don’t want Tracey alone.”

“Is this because of the dress, this little show you’re putting?”

“The dress, the stupid butterfly wings… What else you have there, a wig?”

This time Trevor is the one who snorts, but there’s no sign of humor on it. By the way, his shoulders hang and the way his free hand travels up so the fingers can scratch the back of his neck, Tracey can tell he’s tired. Trevor’s boots crunched some lost pieces of snacks that had fallen on the kitchen floor earlier when he stepped closer to her father.

“How does it work, Mikey? On cold nights like this, you keep warm just wrapping yourself in your own folds like the giant pussy you’re?”

Michael reaches out to the collar of his jacket and it’s not clear if his intention was to push him off or pull him in. One way or the other, Trevor holds his wrists halfway only to jerk them back down.

“Go get me clothespins, will ya?”

“What? Why?”

Trevor shrugs the jacket off his shoulders and pulls off the thermal long sleeve while ignoring Michael's questions, letting the action of stepping into the dress to pass the arms inside the holes be an answer to the question.

“Well, you see, I got an extra-large one because I thought you would be able to drop your fragile masculinity for your daughter’s happiness. Foolish of me, I know.”

The reply to that is mumbled and accompanied by a grimace, their shoulders bump when Michael walks across to the small cabinet and comes back in Tracey’s line of sight with a hand full of clothespins. He’s ready to drop them on Trevor's hand when the man turns the back to him.

“Pin me up.”

Even clearly unhappy about being bossed around, Michael does it, folds the silky, ugly, baby green fabric a couple of times on his back and pin it just enough so it will hug the slim frame better. He helps Trevor pass the arms inside the wings straps and when the other turns around again to face him, dropping glitter all around like a goddamn real fairy would, Michael fails to bite the inside of his cheeks quickly enough so the corner of his mouth betrays him with a smile.

“Ahm… It really doesn’t flatter your chest area.”

Trevor slaps the index finger he’s hovering in circular motions in front of his upper front body.

“Yeah, it would have looked great on your sugar tits, but I’ll make it work. And we know that not every girl is lucky enough to find a turd with some money that is dumb enough to buy her some new boobs, right?”

Tracey sees her dad rubs his own face with a grunt while Trevor adjusts the straps again and puffs the chest before reaching for the bag once more. The wig is curly, closer to yellow than any natural blonde would ever be and when the man is done with trying to get it to sit properly over his head, it looks almost as messy as his own hair. The little girl has to cover the mouth to keep the giggling from getting their attention.

“This is… T, this is ridiculous. You couldn’t go more over the top.”

“Oh…” Trevor picks something from the bag and puts a lock of the fake hair behind the ears on each side, defying eyes narrowing at Michael. “Watch me, cowboy.”

Without waiting for permission, he opens the door of the room Tracey’s mom and dad shared only to stop in front of the tiny mirror above the tiny table Amanda liked to pretend to be a real vanity desk.

Tracey knows what Trevor is looking for but can’t stay to watch it. The girl hurries back to bed so she doesn't get caught spying. Closing the eyes, with the fluffy pink blanket tucked under the chin, she waits and wonders what color he would have chosen while there’s a brief muffled argument outside the room.

She tries not to smile at the tall shadow when the door is gently opened, something about the crooked wings or the heavy boots made the whole thing kinda funny. Her hand goes to the night lamp and with a click, it fills most of the small bedroom with warm orange light. It’s enough for her to see the visitor getting comfortable on a mini stool next to her bed, dress covering the legs and arms crossed easily resting on top of the knees.

“Are you…” Tracey rubs the eyes to dust the fake sleep away. “Are you who I think you’re?”

“Who do you think I’m?”

The light is so weak it paints just enough for her to see an eyebrow being raised and a big smirk on painted lips. Red. Tracey giggles and reaches for the locks of fiber hair to feel it against the fingers.

“Tooth Fairy!”

“And do you know why I’m here?”

“I lost my tooth.”

“How did it happen?”

Tracey sighs as if she had told that story many times.

“Brian came to play with us and he told me you weren’t real, he was being a butt so I ran after him to pull his hair but Jimmy got on the way. Jimmy fell, hit his head and I fell on top of him like this, look…” she uses the hands to show the impact of their heads and then puts the index finger on the space the teeth used to be. “My mouth hit the side of his head and my tooth was gone. It hurt.”

“I’m sorry about that, cupcake… How’s your brother?”

“Mommy is staying with him at the hospital tonight, he has obs-, ob-, obsversion.”

“Observation. Do you know what it means?”

Tracey rubs the eyes again, this time trying to hide the sniffs and tears pricking her eyes. She shakes the head. Despite his efforts, Michael was too busy talking to uncle Lester on the phone about things she didn’t understand after reminding Amanda to tell the hospital reception that her last name was Maxwell or De Santa or whatever the ID she had on her was saying. The turmoil and being separated from her mom and brother for longer than she was used to making her feel scared they wouldn’t ever return and that maybe it was her fault.

“Is he sick?”

“No, this is just a word that means they’re keeping an eye on him to make sure he’s okay and ready to come back home. You don’t need to worry. It’s going to be okay.”

The hand petting her head is heavy but familiar enough to bring comfort so she stops sniffing. After reaching for something under the pillow, Tracey holds the fist above the open palm waiting and drops the baby's front tooth there.

“Bye tooth! Mommy said I shouldn’t be losing them for another two years…”

“Did she tell you’ll grow another one?”

The little girl's jaw drops in surprise. “What?”

“Yeah, it will happen. You’ll lose each one of them with time and they will all grow once more, like magic.”

“So it means you’ll visit me each time?”

“Of course! I’ll do my best to come to see you but, when you get the new ones, you should take care of it so you can keep it for a long time, deal?”

“Deal!”

She holds the pinky finger out for him to link it with his own sealing the promise.

“You’re an angel on earth Tracey Townley.” she giggles, snuggles back to bed while he tucks her in carefully. “And about Brian… He’s a giant, smelly butt who doesn’t know shit.”

The girl laughs, tooth gap showing, and then yawns really big.

“He’ll never believe you came to visit me…” her eyelids are getting heavy and the voice starts to become a whisper. “Neither will my dad. He thinks I’m silly, he’ll say it was a dream.”

For a moment there’s only the buzzing of the heather echoing on the trailer walls and she wonders if maybe it wasn’t all a dream. Scared that it might be true, Tracey opens the eyes to see if the Tooth Fairy was still there only to find him leaving a dollar bill under the corner of her pillow carefully. She shifts on the bed to lay on her side, admires the glitter from the wings somehow shining across the bridge of his nose and cheeks too.

“I wish he would see you.”

One of Tracey’s fingers reaches out and finds the bony knee covered in itchy, silky, ugly fabric before being softly squeezed by a stronger, calloused hand. This time the sniff doesn’t come for the little girl.

“Me too.”

Tracey’s palm is turned upwards and when the fairy presses a kiss onto it before folding her fingers to close the hand into a fist, it tickles just like when she kisses her dad’s cheek.

“Now you have something to show him, eh?”

She nods and brings the fist closer to her chest. “Thank you, Tooth Fairy. I love you.”

“Sleep well, princess.”

“Wait!” she gets up on an elbow making him stop halfway to the door. “Can you… Can you do me a favor, please? Can you tell the monsters in my wardrobe to go away? Sometimes I hear it growling and can’t sleep.”

He spends a while checking inside the wardrobe where Tracey can hear noises until a loud growl makes her hide the head with the covers. When the Tooth Fairy steps away from the wardrobe rubbing the stomach and in one piece, Tracey’s more convinced than ever of how magical she is. The little girl blinks and waits for the official result of the duel.

“That was a tasty little monster that’s now in Belly Land… I warned them to leave you alone, but if it happens again all you have to do is growl back even louder. That’ll remind them.”

“Really?”

“They can’t scare you if you scare them first.” he gently tucks her in again, turning the night light off. “Now go to sleep, kiddo.”

There’s a rustling of fiber sound in the room and before the door behind the Tooth Fairy closes, the yellow light from the living-room-kitchen paints her face for just enough time so she sees uncle T’s looking at his own palm. She couldn't know or even guess, but he was thinking of a small version of himself lying in bed holding the ghost of his mother’s kiss and the idea of being able to pass that loving gesture to her was what made him smile, the realization that maybe magic was real after all, that maybe life finds a way.

The next morning Tracey runs to Michael still in her bunny pajamas and excitedly hugs his leg with a happy yelp. He puts the toast and mug down, crouches to look at her straight in the eyes.

“Did you have a good night?”

“Last night was the best night ever! Look, pick one to see what I got!”

“Uhm, let’s see, this one.”

He taps the left fist she holds up for him and when the hand opens up to show the palm, there’s a smudge red lipstick mark on it. The girl jumps up and down thrilled by the memory of that entire experience.

“It’s from the Tooth Fairy! She came to visit me and oh…” Tracey swipes the finger on his neck. “Did you see her too?”

Michael stands up again so fast that she has to take some steps back so he doesn't bump into her, watches him hurry to the sink to clean the red stamp marked on his skin too.

“That’s just… Uhm, it’s strawberry jam.”

“I want strawberry jam!”

“Sorry sweetie, dad ate it all… We can go buy more, alright? Go choose your clothes to change.”

“Oh Dad, you’re so silly.” she rests the hands on the hips like she had seen Amanda doing many times before, shakes the blonde hair side to side making him chuckle. “We can buy you a bib like Jimmy’s, we can use this money Tooth Fairy gave me!”

“Sure, mom and Jimmy will be home soon so you can make them a surprise.”

Placing the hands on top of her head, she yelps again while running back to the room. Tracey’s already out of the pajama pants and in front of the wardrobe when she remembers the monsters. It was daytime already, the sun was coming through the curtains shyly. Still, she decides to just be sure. She breathes in deeply and growls between closed teeth like an angry kitten until her dad shows up at the door with a frown.

“Are you okay?”

She nods proud of herself, takes the hair out of the face, and opens the wardrobe to point at what she wanted to wear. Michael’s almost done helping her with the boots as the girl hums a lullaby, money already inside the little hand making him narrow his eyes.

“Tracey, how much did the Tooth Fairy give to you?”

“Uhm, just one dollar.”

When she holds out the one dollar Michael shouldn’t be surprised to find Benjamin Franklin staring back at him instead of George Washington, but it still makes him laugh and shake his head.

“That sneaky fucking cunt…”

“Dad! You said bad words!”

“Sorry sweetie,” he pockets the hundred dollars and guides her out of the door with him. “We forget a thousand things every day, let’s make sure this is one of them, huh?”

  
  



	2. Trevor, 1996

“You definitely cried.”

“No.” Michael shifts on the driver seat and slides the hands over the wheel, fingers loosely curled around it. “I didn’t.”

Trevor snorts. He knows sitting in an old car while drizzle is falling outside is not the answer for why his best friend is so uncomfortable. They have done that many times and in situations more critical than this one, just sit and wait patiently for hours, attention fixed on the building across the street. There are some other cars here and there at the parking lot, but no signs of movement on the inside.

Reaching to change the station to look for some music, Trevor is about to make a joke about the name on the big welcoming sign when Michael chuckles, eyes searching the outside surroundings when a car honks in the distance.

“You can ask ‘Manda, she’ll give you an extensive speech about how insensitive I am and how I probably am not even capable of producing tears.”

“Amanda doesn’t know shit about you. I’ve seen you cry at least five times.”

“Please… I don’t cry that much.”

“That’s not much, Mikey. Well, I guess for a guy so out of touch with his own emotions and a self-made manly man who’s scared of scratching the masculinity ideal he suddenly set for himself, it’s quite a lot.”

“Bite me.” he sinks in the seat and shakes the head. “Never happened. I’ll cry when there’s a reason to cry, not over silly things like all of you.”

“Excuse me? You cried one time watching that stupid old movie…”

“The war movie where the mom has to choose which of her two children to give to the soldier so all the three of them don’t die? Wow, so dumb.”

“The guy was walking away! He would be gone to bother someone else if she hasn't said anything.”

“She w-! You know what, I’m not wasting my time trying to explain…”

“Then you cried on that mushroom trip after we jack the hippie van, you had to lie down to laugh because you thought the trees were laughing too, remember?”

“I remember you lying there with me, laughing just as much, and if I cried that day was only because you were killing a great song with your voice.”

“I wasn’t even singing out loud!” Trevor complains offended and watches the others roll their eyes.

“That's what you think…”

“Uhm, funny! You know Townley, I thought you said a bunch of times how you don’t remember shit from that day…”

“Unfortunately, this, I haven’t forgotten.”

“… Besides, you did a very bad job of trying to convince me you knew how to play guitar and then you picked that song, of all songs. You would butcher the lyrics with your awful elementary school French.”

“I know the English lyrics just fine.”

“The French version is way better anyway.”

Trevor looks away through the window letting the memories of that day play on his mind. How the melodies from the guitar seemed to vibrate on air and all over his every atom even if they’re a bit out of tempo, the way the grass was swinging to the song, how he rested the body against Michael’s back to let the cheek be pressed on the space between his neck and shoulder.  _ ‘C'est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie’ _ he thought to himself and smiled. The flowers smiled back.

Michael clears his throat, at the corner of his eyes he can see him running the hand through the hair.

“What about the other times?”

“Other times what?”

“That you  _ allegedly _ saw me cry.”

“Talking about your mom.” He doesn't look away from the window but hears the other man groan and shift uncomfortably. “And the night before your wedding.”

Michael remains very quiet as if he hasn't even heard him. Trevor settles for some noisy music and sinks in the passenger seat, puts the boots on the glove box waiting for the other's repressive look about his words or actions. Instead, the man just clicks the tongue and checks the wrist for the time before looking back out of his window.

“Earlier today ‘Manda cried so much I actually thought she was going to drown in her own tears. I had to drag her back to the car and then Jimmy started crying because he saw she was crying which gave me a headache and fuck… Talk about an overreaction.”

“Come on, you love drama.”

The elbow to the forearm gains Michael's attention enough to make his blue eyes meet Trevor’s even if there’s a sarcastic grin on his lips.

“It’s kindergarten, T… Not college.”

A bell ringing on the build takes his attention away back to the main entry door, hands moving to the top of the steering wheel and fingers squeezing it. He chuckles again and talks as if Trevor couldn’t see the tension on his shoulders.

“Damn, I’ll have to rob the whole fucking Midwest to pay for over a decade of scholarship for these two kids and try very hard not to die in the process. Man, this… This makes me want to cry.”

“Hey! Look at me.” Trevor’s hand is warm on his tight, his finger pressing gently into the skin over the jeans. The freehand grabs the back of his neck to press their foreheads together. “We can do it. It’ll be fine, I got you.”

Michael smiles as he knows, turns the head to press the cheek against his skin, and for a moment Trevor fantasies he’ll kiss him but he doesn’t. Instead, he straightened himself and let go of the breath he had been holding the whole day while pressing the horn twice.

Trevor doesn’t have time to dwell on the usual sudden withdrawal from his best friend because of the little girl carefully looking both sides before crossing the street with a small group of people to make her way to them.

Despite being upset because Michael had bought the purple winter coat instead of the pink she wanted, she still looked adorable on it. It was so big it covered her hands and hit the knees. It would most likely be okay to use for another year or two before being passed to her brother. Trevor smiled until Michael’s words echo on his head and the reality of how fast she was growing up made his eyes burn.

He reaches back to open the door from the inside when she’s close enough and Michael turns down the radio.

“There’s my girl!”

“Oh my God, uncle T! You came to see me!”

Dropping the backpack on the car floor, Tracey squeals and wraps one of the arms on his neck. She lays the head on his shoulder for him to pat her head carefully not to mess the blonde pigtails.

“Hey, where’s my hug and kiss?” Tracey giggles and moves to her dad, smacking the lips on his cheek. She squeezes his neck so much he coughs and taps her shoulder. “Someone had a good first day… Tell us how it was.”

“It was awesome! You know guys…” she struggles to click the seat bell closed because of her sleeves but manages after a while, shaking the hair of her eyes. “I think I’m really good at this kindergarten thing.”

“Of course you’re.”

Michael smiles big and proud, pokes her in the ribs to hear her giggles before heading forward again, turning the car on to drive off. Trevor adjusts himself on the seat better to look at her and help with the coat zipper the girl was struggling to push down.

“We colored crayons, drew ourselves, sang songs, and danced!”

Michael stops at the red light and checks her exciting dance through the rear view mirror.

“Did you like your teacher?”

“Yes, she’s nice and sooo pretty!”

“Oh… I see, nice.”

Trevor laughs and makes Michael smirk when their eyes meet briefly with mischievous complicity, but when the car starts moving again his attention goes back to Tracey.

“Have you made friends yet?”

“Yes, five!”

“Five?”

“Dad…” she sighs as if she was the adult and Michael the child. “You have to make as many friends as you can because that means you get invited to all of their birthday parties.”

“She has a good point.”

Tracey high-fives Trevor and giggles.

“Alright… How about we stop buying those stuffed cookies you love to celebrate your first day?”

The yelp and clapping were enough to answer that and the ride was filled with more random details about her classmates and the playground toys. The drizzle had stopped and the timid sun did a poor job heating up the atmosphere, but it was good, Trevor felt good. That was until the car stopped in the parking lot of the city mall.

“I’m going to wait to eat them at home when Jimmy wakes up because I don’t want to eat all of them and get sick.”

“That’s great, I’m sure he’ll love it. Your mom not so much, but he’ll be delighted.”

The Townley's are out of the car already and Trevor follows them out of pure habit. Michael goes to their side and helps Tracey with the zipper, closing the coat again to avoid her getting a cold. He pockets the keys and looks at him. “Ready?”

Was he? The last time he stepped foot into a mall was probably almost two decades ago and when he walked out there was little less than a pile of burning columns, the flames licking and eating the walls from inside out, a fucking bonfire in the middle of Winkler, Canada. He blinked the memories away.

“I’m going to stay in the car.”

“Come on T, you don’t look that homeless today, I’m sure they’ll let you in.”

Michael chuckles but their eyes meet and the small smile on his lips disappears. Maybe it was the tone of his voice or the stern face or maybe Michael could see the memories playing from his eyes like little TV screens showing a horror movie because he frowns worriedly. To make it clear it’s not up to discussion, Trevor repeats.

“I’m staying in the car.”

“Fine.” Michael shrugs like he does when he has to pretend to be indifferent and uninterested, checking the pocket for the key again just to be sure but Trevor doesn’t notice it.

They are just a few meters from the entry and he hates it. He hates the smell, the noise, the colors, and the fucking warmth from the closed place. It doesn’t make sense and Trevor doesn’t know what he’s looking for and at the same time, he totally does, but his eyes automatically start jumping from male to male, searching. A familiar haircut, familiar attitude, familiar face, and God, he can’t find him, can’t find him anywhere. None of those guys are him, where is he, where is he, Trevor is alone, all alone, please, it’s scary, come back, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease-

A palm is pressed against Trevor’s palm and feels like shaking back into his body. The cold sweat makes him shiver uncomfortably, his dry throat hurts.

“Are you scared?”

Trevor feels dizzy, drained of all his energy, and small. He can’t tell if his hands are shaking from missing the drugs or what just happened but Tracey squeezes the one she’s holding softly and instead of brushing it off or lying, he just nods. She nods too.

“It’s okay. I won’t let go of your hand.”

Trevor doesn’t go inside, he’s not ready for it and doubts he’ll ever be, but he kneels to hug Tracey tight for long enough to have Michael asking what the hell he missed.  _ ‘Uncle T was just congratulating me again for being a schoolgirl,’ _ she says as Trevor roughly wipes the eyes before leaning against the car to tell them to bring him some cookies too.

He ends up staying with them for the rest of the day despite Amanda’s annoyance. She was always trying to do everything these days when he was around, refusing any kind of help for as long it was possible. Trevor had never really said anything, but it was like she was trying to prove that she could handle it like she had made the right choice when she left his motel room in Strasburg five years ago.

As expected, it didn’t always work that well. When Jimmy had screamed at the top of his lungs how he would never sleep again until his favorite stuffed toy, a beaver called Pudding, was found and brought back to safety, everybody at the house had gone on a hunt for the damn thing.

“Nothing… T?”

“No luck.”

“Fuck!” Amanda massages the temples. The three are squeezed in the tiny washroom away from the kids for a meeting about what to do next. “I went to the post office today before the market, we crossed the park… Maybe it’s there?”

“Come on, ‘Manda. It’s easier if we just say some bullshit. He’s two, he won’t know.”

“He’s three.” both Amanda and Trevor correct him at the same time, she keeps talking. “It’s his transitional object, Michael! It’s what helps him to handle emotions and release stress.”

“Stress? From what, shitting his diapers all day?”

“It was Tracey's first day of school.” Trevor absently reaches for a cream bottle on the sink and opens it to sniff it. “His daily routine changed, it’s stressing if that’s all you know.”

“I can’t believe your nasty fucking psychotic friend gets it and you don’t… You didn’t really read the goddamn book, did you?”

A knock on the door makes Amanda cover the beginning of a meaningful answer that was about to come out of her husband's lips. He pulls her hand down with a frown, offended.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Jimmy’s crying for you just puked in dad’s shoes and I need to brush my teeth to sleep.”

“One-second darling, we’ll be right there.”

“Fuckin’ A.” Michael rubs the face tiredly. “Can we say it went to the Beaver Heaven or something?”

“And have to explain the concept of life and death to them? Please, Michael, be reasonable. You’ll go retrace my steps to find the damn thing and you,” she snatches the shampoo bottle Trevor was about to sniff out of his hand and slams back against the sink. “You can help me with Tracey.”

Trevor brings the hand to the right side of the head in a salute. Michael mumbles and says something about his shoes as he squirms out of the washroom before being followed by her. Amanda comes back, puts half of the body inside the room again with raised eyebrows.

“You know the concept of brushing teeth, right?”

He flips her off with both hands and a smile, sees the ghost of a smirk on her lips before she disappears, and calls Tracey. When the girl is done drying the chin on the pink hand towel that had her name embroidered, she pulls him by the hand to her room chanting  _ ‘storytime, storytime, storytime’ _ excitedly.

“Alright-o polkaroo, what do you want uncle T to read?” Trevor sits on the floor as the little girl slides under the covers, his index finger running alongside the titles of a small pile of second-hand children books on the stool. “Three little pigs?”

“No, too silly, those pigs are dumb.”

“Most of the pigs are… So what, what do you want to read?”

“Make one up!”

Tracey pulls the hair out of her face and picks up her favorite plush toy from the end of the bed, snuggling with it after lying down. Jimmy finally stops crying outside while Amanda talks softly with him.

“Mmmkay, what kind of story do you want?”

“A love story! But it has to have an adventure or it sucks.”

“I don’t know many love stories so you’ll have to help me out with that, okay?”

“Sure!”

“Fine, let's see, once upon a time on the strong and free land of the True North there was a sad boy called Trisha.”

“Why was he sad?” she crooks the head with a pout.

“He was very lonely.”

“He had no friends because his parents made him move too?”

Trevor chuckles, even trying her best to hide it, she was still holding a grudge for having to move out of their old place in Linton a few years ago.

“Yeah, he moved many, many times but it wasn’t just that, he missed his mom.”

“Where was she?”

“He didn’t know. She was mad at him when they had last seen each other. Sad boy Trisha was smart and tough, he had passion but just didn’t know what to do with it. She didn’t like that he was always so busy being a… Uhm…”

“Pirate!”

“Sure, a pirate. A pirate that could fly… Dragons?”

“Dragons, yes!”

“You know, he had tried to join the True North army like a good boy and it was all going well until one day, just before he got accepted, an evil witch told him he was too weird so she grounded him for life!”

“Oh no! Sad boy Trisha got sad?”

“Devastated. He fell on this deep pit of doubt and despair, hurt himself a lot trying to climb out of it.” Tracey hugs the toy plush and waits as he sighs. “But life went on. He went on many missions across the land taking things and pretty shiny rocks of hard hidden places, until… Until the day that everything changed.”

“What happened that day, uncle T?”

“He met a fat boy named Mich. Fat boy Mich. Fat Mich.”

The girl giggles. “How did they meet? Was he a pirate too?”

“He was. He was the boy that the captain was sent to meet sad boy Trisha with a bag full of candy to fly to the other side of the kingdom walls. Trisha waited for a long long time and then, suddenly, over the hill he can see dust rising from the ground when fat Mich shows up on a-”

“Toy scooter!” She kicks the legs and covers the mouth with the toy plush’s head. “It’s super cool!”

“Yeah! A fucking toy scooter! The problem is, not long after, another toy scooter shows up chasing him.”

“Uh-noooo!”

“Behind the boy, there was a huge man with an ugly face. When they’re close enough, the man jumps out to the ground and waves the arms, pointing to the boy. It’s a mess, really, sad boy Trisha is kinda confused about the whole thing but the man is yelling and then-”

“What does he do?”

“He goes to the man and… Pokes him. In the eyeball. Really hard.”

She giggles again.

“Turns out the man was a robot and that was his power button so he just fell, turned off like a TV, a red light shining from inside the head…” Trevor gets lost in his thoughts until she yawns. “They end up having to leave the robot man by a lake.”

“A lake?”

“Yes, he farted a lot in his sleep, it smelled terrible.”

“Jimmy does that too!”

“Jimmy got it from your dad.”

This time both of them laugh. Tracey rubs the eye and keeps them closed so he knows she’s almost sleeping, the tight hold of arms around the toy plush relaxing with every breath.

“Anyway, now the guy is gone, sad boy Trisha can take a good look on fat Mich.”

“Was he cute?”

“Oh Trace… He was the cutest boy he had ever seen.”

“I like this story… I hope they stick together." the corner of Tracey's lips twitch upwards as he gets up to tuck her in properly. "Fat Mich and Sad boy Trisha against the world.”

"Yes," Trevor runs the fingers through her hair to comb the locks out of the girl’s face and turn the new lava lamp on. He knows she's already snoring softly when he reaches the light switch, but nods anyway. "Fat Mich and Sad boy Trisha against the world."

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Polkaroo is a mythical character from a Canadian children's television series called Polka Dot Door, aired from 1971 to 1993 (according to wikipedia)


	3. Tracey, 1997

“Bang, bang! Quickfire round, who’s got a question for uncle T?”

In the backseat of the old sand color Ingot, Jimmy stops kicking his sister from his corner with arms crossed in front of his chest. He’s still sleepy and whiny while Tracey’s ready to go, excited to get to their destination despite the early hours. She claps the gloved hands finally giving her brother some peace now the attention is all on the man in the passenger seat.

“Why are pirates called pirates?”

“Oh. I don’t know, maybe because they just arrrgh!” they all laugh, even Michael who got the eyes fixed on the snowy road ahead. Trevor continues. “Bang, bang! Jimbo?”

“How tall is the sky?”

“Not sure about this one, but I know there’s an aircraft who the pilot reached 85,069 feet up there so, there you go.”

The kids try to imagine how tall that is using what they know as a reference like trees and windmills and Trevor smiles at them. Michael steals a look from him.

“Really? That’s crazy.”

“Yep, 1976. Others had exceeded this altitude in zoom climbs, but not in sustained flight. That’s some cool shit.”

Michael grimaces, looking not really sure about that. Tracey knew he was not scared of heights but he didn’t like the idea of flying as much as uncle T did. Trevor usually would tease him and start a discussion about how it was probably just as bad as being stranded on a boat in the middle of the ocean, at disposal of waves. That's why her dad points a finger to stop him before even starting.

“We’re not having this discussion again.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything, Mikey… You love water, I love air. We’re a dream team. It works.” he shrugs and nods towards the road. “But you’re going the wrong way, hang a larry here.”

“Who’s Larry and why does he need to be hanged?”

“Nobody's being hanged, uncle T is just speaking Canadian again.”

“UnClE t Is SpEaKiNG cAnADiaN aGa-”

“Bang, bang!” Tracey cuts Trevor mocking before Michael can start an argument, stealing their attention to her again. “Dad, what’s your favorite flower?”

“Flower?” he snorts and shrugs. “I don’t have one.”

“Yes, you have! His favorite flowers are Black-Eyed Susan's.”

“Wha-No, it isn’t.”

“Yeah, it’s how they are called. They’re like daisies, but have a black middle and yellow petals.”

“No! I  _ don’t _ have a favorite flower. That’s silly.”

“Every time we would make a pit stop in 89’s trip and you saw those little things you would grab the camera to film them. I think it’s safe to say it’s your favorite.”

“Are yo-”

“Bang bang! Uncle T!” Tracey interrupts them once more, Trevor turns the head to have a better view of her. “What’s the weirdest smell you ever felt?”

Michael's eyes meet him for a second in a silent conversation Tracey wouldn’t ever know but went like  _ ‘melting brain from the head of a guy he just shot a flare gun through the eye?’ _ and  _ ‘yeah, that smell’ _ . They chuckle and Trevor looks back at her.

“Your nappies. You had some mean intestines when we were a tiny bean, kiddo.”

Jimmy's picking the nose. Tracey grimaces and scooches away from him. “Why’s poop brown?”

“Because of your organ juices.”

The boy giggles and snuggles Pudding. He hadn’t noticed yet how their parents had got him a new one so that was actually Pudding IV, but Tracey knew and was holding the information to use it against him at the right time. Maybe next time he switches the TV from Franklin to Sailor Moon again… She was so curious to know if Otter would get the puzzle from him and now she will never know. The girl glances over to watch him laying the head on top of the importer toy ready to go back to the nap he was taking before.  _ ‘Dumb little brother’ _ , she thinks to herself,  _ ‘he’ll cry like a baby for messing up her Franklin The Turtle time’ _ . Tracey sighs happily with herself.

“Bang, bang! Dad, where’s the strangest place you ever pooped?”

“What up with you two and shit today?” Michael looks at her through the rear view mirror with knotted eyebrows while waiting for the green light. “I don’t know.”

“I know…”

“You fucking know shit.”

“Was that supposed to be a joke? Very funny, Mikey.”

“Thanks, I’m here most days of the week.”

“Seriously though, it can’t be worse than a Pringle’s can.”

“For the last time, it wasn’t me who took a shit at the Pringle’s can. I bet it was Glenn that slimy ass piece of trash.”

“RIP. Rest in poop.” he laughs and reaches to Michael’s ear to flick it, the other covers it with the shoulder. “Now that’s a quality joke, eh?”

“Well, let’s see, what’s the strangest place  _ you _ ever took a shit?”

“Dad! You’re doing it wrong. You have to say  _ ‘bang bang’ _ and you can’t steal my question.”

Tracey blows air into her blond bangs and is fixing the beanie on the head when the car breaks at once. They weren’t moving too fast thanks to the snow, but the driver of a white Bison yells something that is followed by a  _ ‘motherfucker’ _ when Michael hunks the horn and curses the guy who had cut the traffic in front of him back. Looking back at them to check if someone had gotten hurt in any way, Michael's eyes fell on Trevor. Tracey can also see the way his jaw is tensing and the eyes fixed on the car ahead without even blinking.

She sits up straighter trying to catch a glimpse of what can be wrong. All the girl can see is her dad’s hand on top of Trevor’s when he reaches for something. Their eyes meet and after a long moment, Trevor blinks, shifts on the seat, and nods. Michael doesn’t pull the hand away.

“Are we good?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

Tracey thinks that’s funny and silly because uncle T had never left the car but Michael is driving again, both hands on the wheel and Trevor rubs the palms excitedly as the stop had never happened.

“Well, mine was in an evidence bag… The cops loved it.”

“Why I’m not surprised… Uhm, bang, bang! Jimmy, what’s your favorite word?” as expected, the boy was asleep like a rock and drooling over the plush. Tracey is about to shove him awake at once when Michael calls her out with wide eyes, shaking his head. “It’s fine, you can answer this one.”

She crooks the head, considering. "Cunt.”

“Oh my…”

“Don’t look at me," uncle T raised the hands up with the palms open. "You’re the one who’s always saying that.”

“Fuckin’ A...”

“You’re cursing right now, see?”

Tracey chuckles at their reaction. She knows it's a bad word and she’s smart enough to understand some things you don’t say in front of some people like strangers or her mom. Uncle T taught her that people should always only use kind words when speaking to their moms and she tried her best to follow.  _ ‘Mothers are sacred creatures, Tracey’ _ , he had told her once,  _ ‘they’re proof of the divine, made of tenderness and wonder’ _ .

“What babies are made of? Where do they come from?”

The question came out so casually it makes the adults shut up at once.

“W-What did you say, sweetie?”

“I said,” she raised her voice a bit, eyebrows high on the forehead just like Amanda did when Michael pretended he didn’t listen to her. “Where do babies come from?”

“I thought you had to say  _ ‘bang, bang’ _ before the questions…”

This time Michael got two pairs of eyes on him, his daughter's and his best friend's, both saying without any words he was pushing his luck with the act. He sighs and turns right on the parking lot.

“Alright. Babies. Ahm…” he looks out for a vacant stop, trying to think of something that would convince her. It didn’t have to be  _ that _ good, just enough until Amanda was back from her parent's house in Linton. “Didn’t mom tell you about the, ahm, the delivery storks?”

Trevor laughs so loud it almost wakes up Jimmy. Tracey snorts.

“That’s worse than your  _ ‘from the hospital’ _ answer… It’s not possible dad.” she zippers her jacket when the car stops. Michael is almost counting this as a win while turning off the car when she shrugs. “Besides, I know it’s sex.”

Michael turns around in his seat to look at her so fast the seat makes a popping sound. This time Trevor doesn’t laugh.

“Excuse me, young lady, what?”

Her eyes go a little wide from all the attention she’s getting out of nothing.

“Payton Grace heard her mom scream at her middle sister Joan Lynette because she had sex with their third cousin Russel on a trip to visit her aunt and now she’s expecting a baby.”

“Oh.”

“I just don’t understand... But if you don’t wanna tell me it’s fine. I can ask Payton Grace.”

“Waitwaitwaitwait,” Trevor raises the hand again, one finger pointing to the roof as if he had a question. “Is this girl the one who said that if you have 2 boxes with 6 eggs it means you have 8 eggs in total?”

Tracey giggles and nods, little legs swinging. “She also said 5 tables would have a total of 12 legs.”

“Okay, no. Uncle T will explain it to you.”

“Trevor… No.” Michael frowns at him and shifts on the seat. “This is not your pl-”

“Do you really want two-and-a-half-brain-cell Payton Grace to explain the miracle of conception to your kid? Or maybe she will get her sister to do it. Or ma-”

“Fine! Just… Be reasonable.”

“What kind of idiot you take me for, Michael? You’re right here, if you feel like being a man and doing some of your father duties at least bringing true information, go ahead.”

Her dad rubs the face, stares at James still sleeping comfortably in the most uncomfortable position possible, rolls his eyes, and waves the hand in his direction. Trevor’s frown melts away before looking at the girl who’s smiling in victory in the backseat.

“Alright, kiddo. Pregnancies! You see, mothers have a baby bag inside their tummy that is called a womb.”

“Womb,” she nods. “Okay.”

“Mothers also have something called eggs and fathers have something called sperm so when they have sex, these two things are combined into something that will grow into a baby. There are some other ways of having babies, but this is the main one.”

“Alright… And how do they get out?”

“Sometimes they cut the mother's bag to take the baby out and sometimes they just come out of their vaginas.”

Keeping his face turned away as if he was trying to hide or searching for a place to run from the conversation, Michael mumbles something she can’t understand and if Trevor does, he just ignores it. Tracey frowns.

“Like... Pee?”

“Uhm, kind of, yeah.”

“Ouch…”

“Yeah,  _ ouch _ …”

“Do I have a baby bag?”

“You do and if you want, one day, you can be a mom too.”

“Oh…”

Michael eventually steals a look from the girl, watches her face waiting to see the results of the newfound information. Secretly, he’s thinking it’s too soon, it’s too soon, it’s too soon, and how maybe he could ask Lester to locate a bunker somewhere where he could keep her until she’s what, maybe 30? Away from boys and possibly cousins and Payton Graces. Quietly, Michael’s wishing he could ask Lester to look for a time capsule that he could put her and her brother in so they can remain babies, his babies.

Contrary to Michael's fears, she just nods.

“Okay. Thanks, uncle T!”

“Sure! And look… Sex is normal and nice but that’s something for adults and adults only, alright? Don’t worry your pretty little head about that or babies. You’ll have time for that when you’re older.”

“Way older!" Michael adds with widened eyes. "Like,  _ really _ older and can make sure you only have babies with someone who’s your best friend too. That’s how you do it. Definitely not a random cousin or whatever.”

Tracey frowns again, moves to the edge of the seat to put the feet on the car floor. “If that’s how you do it then why did you have me and Jimmy with mom and not uncle T?”

Her father closes the door he had just opened, the cold air makes her snuggle inside her coat. He doesn’t answer, only remains quiet and still looking ahead to the brick wall of the waffle house. Trevor steps out of the car but reappears two seconds later when he opens the backseat door to wake up Jimmy. The girl can see he’s smirking while taking off the seat belt of the whiny boy who's rubbing the eyes, smirking just like he does when he’s proud of her.

“Well… You see, polkaroo, I don’t have a baby bag. If I had one you would have a bunch of br-”

“ _ Trevor! _ ”

Michael gets out of the car while telling him to shut up, mutters something else before reappearing at Tracey’s side to help her out. She laughs, hops to the floor, and kicks snow around while the doors are closed and locked. Trevor appears on her side with Jimmy still clinging onto his neck as she grabs her father’s hand.

“I’m glad you don’t have a bag uncle T, I would hate having to share you with some other kid other than these two.”

  
  



	4. Tracey, 1998

Trevor scratches the face and adjusts the hat on top of his head, finishes the contempt of his sixth small teacup in one sip. On the opposite side of the coffee table at the Townley’s small living room, Tracey squints her blue eyes while looking at the bunny-shaped biscuits she and Amanda had made earlier. Now, her mother was in the room next door folding the dry clothes into neat piles while they had fun with mathematical challenges at her monthly tea party.

“Can I use the hands?”

“Nope. Just your brain.”

“Ugh. Alright… Something and a half, right?”

“What?”

“It has 33, so… Right? Maybe…. 16?”

“Here…” he picks one of the pastries and eats it in one bite. “Easier.”

“Well, now just 16. Isn’t it?”

“Yes, 16. But be confident!” Trevor picks up another five. “What now?”

“Oh my God… Uhm…”

“Trace… Confidence!”

“I know, I know,” she hums for a moment to stretch time and delay the answer. “It’s 12 and a half!”

The man hisses, uses the thumbs to crack the rabbit in the middle, throwing it up the air to catch in his mouth. He scratches the skin sore on his arm with the fingernails that the girl had finished painting in purple while the biscuits were getting done, and takes some of the colors of it accidentally. “I don’t know cupcakes, is it?”

“Yes, Trevor! It’s 12 and a half.” she raises the eyebrows, leans back to rest against the seat while taking a sip of a teacup, pulls the plate towards her with the freehand. “It also means you already got your share and this is all mine now.”

“Touché.”

“Thanks, uncle T! It was fun." she munches on the pastry and traces its outline. "Now I get why dad called you a math head. You’re really good at it.”

“Wait, wait, wait… Your dad called me what?”

“Math head… Why? Is… Is it a bad thing?”

Trevor looks around without saying a word, nods to the empty room. He rubs the mustache and smiles but Tracey knows he’s not happy.

“Thanks for the tea, little moose. I’ll see you soon.”

When he gets up, he leaves the hat on her head and crumbs of crushed biscuit rabbits on the floor. The front door slams so hard on its frame that shakes the dishes inside the cabinets and the table making the teacups fall off, spilling all on the floor.

He comes back later that night only that this time he doesn’t come in. Through her window, Tracey sees her dad go outside, watches them argue while Trevor opens and closes the hands into fists. The pace and many times start walking away before stepping closer again as if they weren't done with the discussion yet. Michael gestures look around and across the street, many times runs the fingers through the hair. He says something that Tracey can’t make out but knows it’s awful by the look of pain on Trevor’s face. After that, the voices are raised for whoever has ears to listen to.

“That’s rich coming from you guys... Mommy only ever worked on the vertical when she was rubbing herself on a pole a-”

“Don’t you fucking talk like that about her!”

“-ear daddy used to do line after line of cocaine on strippers ass cracks, but oh… Uncle T is deranged isn’t he?”

“You don’t make my life any easier, do you?”

“Oh! Of course, it’s about yourself, it always is! You’re a selfish bastard Michael, you’re a piece of hot flaming trash and I hate you.  _ I. Hate. You _ .”

“Then fucking go, Trevor! Fucking leave!”

He doesn’t. For a moment he just stood there, ragged breathing and shiny eyes. Tracey sees him stepping forward, sees her father stepping back. Trevor reaches out and Michael pushes him away once, twice, and then after a while, Trevor wins, Trevor hugs him.

Her dad never cries. He said once his father didn’t either and because of that she didn’t know boys could actually cry after they turn to men, but from the window Tracey watches her uncle T, illuminated by nothing besides the moonlight that’s sitting high on the sky watching over them all, crying. Just… Crying and standing there, hugging her dad tight against his chest.

Uncle T must say something she misses because Michael pushes him away again and his fist connects with his nose. Tracey doesn’t say a word at first, the scream gets stuck on her throat. Her eyes just go wide and the stomach feels cold like when Amanda pushes her super high at the park swing. The blood running from Trevor’s face looks black and the laugh that escapes him only makes Michael angry enough to punch him again. This time his body falls and Tracey screams.

It’s hard to calm her down that night. In the middle of her full breakdown Michael tries to get closer, but standing face to face with her sobbing figure, he freezes. For a long time, he just stares at her shaking and wailing until he drops his eyes to the floor, to his own hands and then he leaves. Tracey cries harder. Her chest feels empty, she hugs herself.

Amanda is there, holding her so close it almost hurts. It doesn’t make the pain go away but it almost does. Tracey sleeps after crying for an hour, nursed by her mom like a baby, hearing her hum a soft melody while the free hand plays with Jimmy’s hair who had found a way to tuck himself by her side too.

The next morning, puffy-eyed, sleepless, super mom Amanda tries her best to explain what had happened. ‘ _ They’re like brothers,’ _ the woman had said, ‘  _ and sometimes brothers fight’. _ She nods, understands, but that doesn’t fulfill all her doubts. Like why they had to leave from time to time and why dad can’t stay as happy as he is when he arrives? Why is the blue in his eyes almost swallowed by the pupils sometimes when he actually is? Why does uncle T have so many scars all over or doesn’t know when his own birthday is? Why did they never visit uncle T at his place for a change? Why did mom stop buying soda cans after the last birthday party and why is the shoebox on the top of their bedroom forbidden? Why didn't dad want to hug uncle T or why couldn’t he hold her?

Tracey hoped one day she would get all the answers. Until then, she’s simply glad that despite all that, she still finds the two men watching TV together with bottles in their hand a week later and runs to climb on the couch in between them. Nested against her father and outstretched legs on uncle’s T knees, everything is back in its place in her world and her heart it’s at peace.

  
  



	5. Amanda, 1999

“Where’s the baking soda?”

“Hmmm, what are we cooking again?”

“Nothing for your nose Trevor and there’s no  _ ‘we’ _ , there’s  _ ‘me’ _ , trying to cook my daughter some goddamn cupcakes for the Season Party tomorrow. The keyword here is  _ trying _ because both of you are incapable of listening. I honestly don’t know how Lester manages.”

Amanda presses the back of her floured hand on the forehead with eyes closed trying hard not to lose her mind. Michael had already pushed her to the edge of Patience Hill when, after the second trip to the market, they were still one egg short for the recipe and then once again when he forgot the butter.

They were in the middle of a discussion when Trevor had walked in. He looked pleased with watching the argument for a while until Michael toss him the duty of going back to get the stupid remaining ingredients. Trevor laughed. Really. Sank on the small couch with the hands behind the head and one foot up dangerously near the flower vase without a care in the world as he lived there. Then Michael said the magic word – Tracey – and the scorn was gone from his little petulant smirk.

She hated it. She wanted to yell at Michael for involving him in this, on their lives, on every-fucking-thing all-the-fucking time but at least when he finally left with a piece of paper in hands, the constant feeling of being out of an inside joke that was always poking her insides when he and her husband were together was gone with him.

Not for long enough though, never for long enough.

“Look  _ Amanda _ , there was no  _ fucking _ baking soda on the  _ fucking _ list the pile of  _ shit _ you call husband gave me.”

He slams the crinkled paper on the counter with a loud smack and she grabs it to check that he wasn’t lying. There wasn’t baking soda on the list. Trevor turns to Michael who came back from the bathroom with clean hands to start working in one of the bowls, pointing to the woman.

“You see, that’s why I only visit once every two weeks now. You don’t let me drive your car, she treats me like this….”

“Oh, I wish.” the woman interrupts. “You visit only once every two weeks nowadays because the rest of the week you’re too busy getting fucked up on speed and who knows what.”

“Eh,” Trevor sighs dramatically and leans closer with an elbow on the top of the counter, resting the chin on the palm of the hand. “It’s the only Krystal left for me.”

“It’s the only  _ ‘Krystal’ _ you could  _ ever _ get.”

“Is it though, ‘Manda?”

She flips him off, throws the ball of paper on his face, and still all that son of a bitch does is poke his tongue out to her. Amanda would rather he had broken her knees or something.  _ ‘Don’t think Strasburg , don’t think Strasburg!’ _ she shakes the head while repeating mentally like a mantra,  _ ‘don’t fucking think Strasburg!’ _

“Hey! Despite what you two best buddies seem to think I’m not incapable of hearing and neither are the kids so let’s all drop it, okay? Besides, you said you were the one doing all the work but I’m the one struggling with the mixing. How much of salt it is again?”

“One teaspoon.”

Amanda climbs a chair to look deep on the cabinets for some baking soda and lets out a genuine excitement when finds it. It’s probably not enough and she complains about it for a while wondering whether or not to risk having small sad cupcakes or leaving the two men unsupervised in the kitchen to buy the goddamn thing herself. Before she can decide, Michael drops the whole thing on the bowl.

“Oh good Lord, Michael…”

“It’s going to be fine babe, you’ll see.”

When the batter is ready to go to the tins Amanda had just arranged on the counter, Trevor shoves one finger inside the bowl and puts it in his mouth. Her brain short circuits for a moment, shoulders raising to the ears on a mixture of loathing and tension. She shuts the eyes tight holding a screech, opens them back up to snarl at him.

“Did you just put your gross ass fingers on my kid's cupcake batter, you fucking worthless prick?”

“One finger, yeah, I did. And with that, I saved you two a lot of time because this…” he uses the finger that had left his mouth to make vague circles around the bowl. “Tastes like garbage.”

“I bet you would know that, huh?" Michael chuckles at his own joke before frowning. "Wait, what?”

Amanda tastes the batter herself and grimaces. Michael waits, looking at her for answers.

“Did you put the vanilla or…” she reaches for the orange container to read the label in the front part. “This is sugar, Michael. Oh my God!”

“So what? These things are supposed to be sweet, aren’t they?”

“It’s ruined. There’s not enough baking soda, sugar instead of salt, the vanilla wasn’t mixed with the eggs and… Just forget about it.”

He shifts the weight on his legs, looking at the mess all over the kitchen and trying to come up with a plan.  _ ‘Great Michael,’ _ Amanda thinks to herself while looking at all the dishes she’ll have to do before going to bed,  _ ‘like always, ruining things you touch with your arrogant hands’ _ .

“Can’t we add now? Fuck, can’t the shit it goes on top make it up for it?”

“You think life works like that, don’t you? Well, I got news for you, honey, it doesn’t. You can’t ruin something and throw pretty things on top so others won’t notice how you fucked up.”

“You talk as if this was something extraordinary and the not plain basic shit that it actually is, darling.”

Amanda understands they weren't talking about the cupcakes anymore. She narrows her eyes, the knuckles crack against the countertop.

“We can easily fix this, watch…” with a calm and clear move the woman grabs the bowl only to drop the whole thing in the garbage. “Gone.”

“Right where it belongs.”

“Right where it belongs.” she echoes like the  _ ‘I do’s’ _ they exchanged at the tiny church years ago. “Now, you go outside and explain to your kids who’s a fault it is.”

“That’s funny co-”

“If you could just list-”

A loud grunt and a thud make them both shut up and look at Trevor.

“Trust me, I enjoy this more than the lovey-dovey bullshit, but if I have to listen to you two arguing for another minute I’ll stab myself in the neck with this fork.”

Amanda snorts, hands resting on the waist. “You wouldn’t give me the pleasure, would you Trevor?”

“I could give you  _ some _ pleasure alright, but yeah... This one, you’re right, I wouldn’t.”

“Trevor!”

“Michael!” he calls back sarcastically.

He dodges the first punch aimed at his arm and grabs a hold of the fist heading his way a second time only to pull Michael closer. Trevor smirks victorious, leans in as if he was going to bite just to freak him out. They wrestle for a brief moment until Michael pushes him away.

“While you two are having fun, I’ll tell Tracey the news.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Why?” Amanda turns to Trevor with arms crossed over the chest and raised eyebrows. “Are you going to make her a dozen cupcakes at… 9 PM?”

“Me? I’m not a good baker, however, I’m fucking fantastic robber. Now come on sugar tits, the break is over.”

“T… No. These fucking cupcakes are not that important.”

Amanda pinches the bridge of her nose in annoyance trying to decide which one of the two is worse. She’s so tired it’s hard to come to a conclusion. Trevor opens the door to leave.

“You can stay if you want but I’m taking your car.”

“No, you’re not. I got the k-”

Trevor dingles the keys he had just gotten from Michael’s pocket moments earlier right in front of his face. Despite being annoyed, she can see the way her husband bites down a smile.

“You’re an asshole.”

“Come on Mikey, chop, chop.”

Michael looks at Amanda, palms raised as if asking on a silent  _ ‘what can I do?’ _ question and the woman just has the strength to shrug as permission she doubts he really thinks he needs. They leave and she calls the kids back inside, supervises them brushing their teeth, reads a story, and watches over while they sleep for a moment, remembering how tiny they were just a few years ago and trying to imagine their future. It scares her so she closes the door like she could put another barrier of protection between the two sleeping children and the darkness of their family reality. Amanda knows she can’t, but she prays to somehow find a way of doing it, just for a little while longer, just so they can stay kids… Pure, naïve, normal kids.

It’s 11 PM when the footsteps outside wake her up and she puts herself in between the front door and the short corridor leading to the rooms. When the lights are clicked on, Trevor is standing there holding a tray so big he struggles when trying to get inside.

“Cute toy baseball bat you have over there.”

Amanda drops the neon green thing on the couch and moves to take the shoes Jimmy had left on the way, holding the door open for him. He puts the tray down on the countertop, she puts the knife that was hidden on her back next to it. Trevor hums more pleased than he should be.

“ _ Make them nap… _ ” he begins.

“… _ And then you stab. _ ” she finishes.

They remain quiet for a moment, both thinking about their mothers and their reasons for knowing the local stripper’s self-defense ditty. He’s about to say something when Michael elbows the door open and curses five bad words in sequence when stumbles at one of the toys left near the door. Amanda saves the second tray from falling gracefully. She’s ready to drop the whole annoying mood and thank them for finally saving her daughter’s Season Party when she notices something.

“It’s this from Mable’s?”

“Allegedly. Why?”

She ignores her husband and grunts, pulls the hair upon a messy bun again, rubs the tired eyes.

“They’re pretty good ‘Manda! We drove one and a half hours to Napoleon to get these things, what can be possibly wrong this time?”

“People  _ know _ this place…”

“Someone other than the 776 people of that stupid town?” Trevor takes off the jacket and drops it on the couch. “I mean, possibly 775.”

“…It’s famous. People will recognize the taste and know.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you today, huh?" Michael rubs the face and frowns at her. "I can’t win with you, can I?”

“Keep it quiet, Michael, the kids are sleeping.”

“You’re always complaining, no matter what I do an-”

“-you did get freaking…”

Amanda pulls the brown paper sheet covering the tray and laughs. So much that she bends forward and her stomach hurts and tears are falling and she can’t breathe. A coughing fit follows and Michael puts a cup of water at her hands. She accepts blindly, drinks it, and then laughs some more. When the woman reaches for his cheek, thumb rubbing the light stubble there, her touch is soft like her words.

“You’re a complete idiot, babe.”

“Hmm,” Michael’s smirking, his sneaky hand sliding from the small of her back to grab a handful of the ass. “Am I?”

“Have you ever seen a cupcake, Michael?”

“Oh… Yeah, that was my fault. It was dark, we got distracted for a while, you know…” Trevor sighs dramatically, snags one of the pastries from the tray, and bites half of it. “Nice, creamy just how I like it.”

It’s Trevor’s time to laugh wholeheartedly and she would have too if was in another situation, one where she didn’t feel like the joke. Michael runs the fingers through the hair clearly uncomfortable by her side while trying to keep his voice down while arguing with the other man.

For a brief moment, her eyes fall into the knife and for a moment she allows herself to imagine grabbing Trevor by the hair to crave one big cut on his throat from side to side. He’d probably like that. Amanda thinks about the sounds and noises, the expressions, the eyes... She imagines the blood pouring from it, painting the kitchen red, covering the stupid fucking muffins a-

“I had an idea! If we cover the muffins with a cupcake topping, maybe we can mask the obvious Mable’s flavor just enough to trick the other moms.”

“Yeah,” Michael nods at her. “I doubt the kids will complain about extra chocolate, it’ll work.”

“Uncle T saves the day again.” Trevor stretches lazily and gets up. “Gonna drink a cold one to that.”

“What you’re going to do shithead, is grab the butter, cocoa powder, salt, and sugar. Michael,” she handles him a bowl. “I’ll get the vanilla and the heavy cream, you’ll mix. Nobody’s leaving until all these are ready.”

Both of the men complain under their breath and try to shove each other out of the way to get what they’re looking for but Amanda smiles with confidence, she’s a mother of two, she knows just how to deal with it. She won’t embarrass her daughter at her first seasonal party of the year. If icing a fucking stolen tray of muffins to turn it into a weird, stupid Frankenstein of pastries so fucking be it.

  
  



	6. Trevor, 2000

“Fourteen years and you’d think we would be getting better places to stay…”

Trevor has to try a couple of times until the light snaps on at the center of a moldy motel room in Little Havana where they’re staying. Some of the bugs flick their wings against the glass bowl before joining the growing pile of dead insects there.

“It’s low-key, has a heater… That’s better than outside in my books.”

The storm has been ruthless for hours now. The plan was to look for something further away in the city but that turned out to be impossible so they’ll be stuck to those four lime green walls, weird mustard tiles, and stained cream color curtains instead. Trevor runs one of his knuckles under the eyelashes before running a finger through the dusty old hack holding the old TV the other man turns on.

“You know what else this place probably has?” Michael hums in response, sitting in one of the beds already out of his jacket and undoing the boot's laces. “Scabies. Lice. Fleas. And probably crabs too.”

“None of those are unfamiliar to you, T,” Michael smirks and Trevor forces a laugh, mingles it with a grunt at the end while walking around the room to check the rest. “I never had scabies. Or Fleas.”

“And  _ I _ never had gonorrhea.”

“That’s debatable…” he can feel the other watching him as he uses his fingertip to align a framed version of the most popular Vice City postcard on the wall. “Come on T… It’s just for a couple of days. What do you want?”

The bed cracks when Michael shifts on the mattress to face him. He turned down the TV volume which always meant Trevor had managed to get his full attention, that he was interested in whatever was bugging him. A small cockroach escapes from under the frame and beelines its way to the washroom at the corner of his eye when he turns to face him.

Fourteen years and he’d guesses the sight of Michael Townley would stop making him feel like something on his chest was starving, he’d thought that stupid motion of hand combing the rebel lock of jet black hair behind or the tiny swipe of tongue on the top lip or those keen blue eyes would stop knocking the air of his lungs. He’d assume maybe the first lines around his face and the layer of fat settling on top of hard muscles would stop making him look like the fucking protagonist of a dumb movie but good Lord above… It didn’t. Trevor doubted all of that would ever change.

He smirks and sighs dramatically to get himself ready, hope he still remembers the lines correctly and won’t fuck it up.

“I want things. A lot of things, big things. I don't want to be afraid of life or anything else…” Michael frowns for a moment and then it melts away, a grin turns into a large smile. “I want a guy with spirit and guts. A guy who can laugh at anything, who will do anything. A guy who can kick over the traces and win the world for me.”

“Did you just quote Gun Crazy?”

“You know how many times you’ve made me watch this fucking movie through these years? I’ve been brainwashed.”

Michael leans forward and reaches out to grab a handful of his coat, pulling his body towards him in the bed until Trevor's standing in between his open legs. He’s still smiling when Trevor leans down to press their lips together.

“You’re the fucking worst.”

It’s just a whisper and Trevor hums, the fingers reach the hair on the back of his head and curl around the locks. He tugs it behind and licks Michael’s lips open, swallows his soft moan before giving into a slow kiss that makes his insides tingle. He's straddling Michael and panting from grinding against him when the sound of the framed postcard falls down to the floor with a loud thud.

“This place does suck.” Michael pulls away to look at him, frowns while licking the bottom lip. “What… There’s something different in your face… Or maybe it’s just your receding hairline.”

“You’re a sack of shit, ain’t ya? Nice way to kill my boner.” Trevor pushes him away straight enough to make Michael fall behind and hit the back on the mattress. “You know what will happen if you keep talking about my hair?”

“Let’s see, you’ll rip my limbs apart and beat me up with it? Maybe feed me my own intestines? Poke my eyeballs out and shove each one on each of my nostrils?”

Before climbing out of his lap and heading to the washroom, look at himself at the mirror to run the fingertips underneath the eyes, Trevor sees him stretching lazily and putting the arms behind his head with a smug smirk on his face.

“Oh, I won’t even need to do anything.” Trevor raises the voice for him to hear in the other room. “You’ll get so fat that won’t be able to reach your dick and then all the cigarettes you chain smoke will make you go permanently soft.”

He hears Michael mumbling something and smiles to himself. Going back to the room to finally start settling down, Trevor sees him taking off the bracelet Tracey had done.  _ ‘So you can remember home,’ _ she had said happily to her dad,  _ ‘And for luck!’. _

“You should keep it.” He points at it to answer Michael's silent question. “She said it’s for luck.”

Michael chuckles and tosses it his way.

“Keep it. We have a solid plan, a reliable crew, and good hardware. That will be my luck.”

He gets up and heads to the washroom and Trevor shakes his head at his lack of tact while watching him go. The bracelet hugs his wrist, the colorful beads spin around itself when his fingertips flick them making him smile.

Two days later, Trevor goes to the back of the bank to check for updates and watch the work being done. All the cameras were running a replay from last week thanks to Lester who was sitting at the comfort of his hiding spot somewhere, nose stuck on an electronic device full of buttons and lines of code in green letter Trevor couldn’t begin to understand. There were no signs of police sirens or rain which were always good signs. Things were going as smoothly as they had planned. In a couple of hours, he would have more stacks of cash he could carry in his pockets, cocaine on his system, and Michael all over him.

He’s about to scream at Joe, the kid from Blueberry who was almost finished drilling the safe, just to keep them all alert, when he notices Michael stepping closer. He’s staring. Again.

“Why don’t you take a picture, eh?”

“There’s something different about you, what  _ is _ it?” Instead of answering, Trevor checks the time. Still good. “It’s something in your eyes…”

“Again with the movie lines? You’re so tacky. Save the shitty pickup lines to your wife, I’ll suck you off for much less any day… I just don’t think it would be a good idea to leave the seminal fluid on a robbery.”

Michael laughs, throws the head back. Trevor resists the mad urge to end the distance between their bodies and kiss him.

“As if you would ever let any of my cum go to waste.”

“You know me, cowboy.”

He clicks the tongue twice and winks. Trevor takes Michael in for a moment, standing under the fluorescent light, shining blue eyes under eyebrows are the only thing he can see thanks to the balaclava, his chest puffed with confidence like he owned the place, an assault rifle in hands… Almighty. A sight to behold. Louvre worthy, really. All he can think for a moment is Pablo Neruda’s Love Sonnet XI for some reason and about that hunger f-

The screams coming from the front of the bank burst his bubble.

Arriving where Ellen’s holding the hostages he breathes in deeply while trying to keep calm because despite being a skillful asset, she looked almost as scared as the twelve people there.

“What the fuck it’s happening here?” the customers jump in a response to his shout, some of them sob. “I thought my buddy had already told you guys to shut the fucking mouth!”

Ellen walks around to check a trio of crying tellers further in the room and end up finding a man in a suit, middle-aged and snob looking, sitting with the back against a big vase of a dying ugly plant.

“You, asshole! Face to the ground. Now!”

He snorts and stays where he’s. Trevor walks towards him, holds the stare he shoots his way with defiance.

“Haven’t you fucking hear the lady? Face on the ground.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t take orders for motherfuckers like you.”

On a shift move, Trevor hits him with the nose of his shotgun. He can see Ellen tries to hide how the sound of the man’s nose cracking didn’t make her jump by holding her gun tighter on the hands. He’s kicking the lump body at his feet until all his teeth are gone when Michael joins them, stares at the shaking body for a moment, and then looks back at Trevor.

Trevor can hear him complaining in his head. Nothing he hasn't heard before. Stuff about being reckless, going overboard, not wanting to hurt the hostages more than necessary, yadda yadda yadda. The silent conversation ends with Michael shaking the head and him grunting in annoyance.

“You.” Michael points at a bold guy near the pillar. “Let’s fill the bags, come on.”

The man takes a moment to react, struggles to stand up, but walks to the back of the bank to shove bundles of bills from inside the vault to their duffel bags without Michael having to press the tip of the gun against his back.

“Just a little longer and you’ll be all free to go.”

Ellen looks calmer now she’s not alone with the twelve of them. Well, ten. She’s checking the outside every once in a while and still manages to catch one of the hostages trying to reach for something.

“What you have there? Huh?”

Taking the phone of the woman turns out to be challenging. At least until her heel connects with the back of the hostage’s hand making her yelp, the cellphone spins around across the shiny floor to stop at Trevor’s feet. He grabs it from the ground, feels pleased with how the sound of his boots on the floor makes people tremble. Nothing like a good respectful crowd. Leveling his eyes with the woman’s he flips the device open and twists it back so it snaps in half with a loud noise.

“No more funny business.”

Her face blanches, the hurt hand pressed against the chest. “P-please, don’t kill me, I’ll do anything!”

“ _ Anything? _ ”

She nods and looks down to avoid his eyes, he crooks the head to the side until they connect again. Someone across the room whimpers and the sound of Ellen's boots echoes through the room.

“What’s your name, doll face?”

“Z-Z-Zoe.”

“Z-Z-Z-Z-Z,” he mimics her with a whiny voice before chuckling, resting his chin against the bloody nose of the shotgun. “I’m messing with ya. Z-Zoe, I want you… To tell us all a joke.”

“A joke?”

“Yes! And make it a good one,” he gets up again and spins around. “We can all use some good laughs, go on now…”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Come on, you have to know at least one joke.”

“N-no, I d-don’t." she shakes her head violently as Trevor raises the gun to her face. "Please! I don’t know.”

“I know one!”

Trevor stops pointing the gun and spins around to face a bearded man in a blue T-shirt who was holding the hand up like a school kid.

“A volunteer, I likey! Go ahead.”

“I don’t like malls, uhm, once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen the mall.” Trevor and Ellen exchange a look. She shrugs. The man swallows so loud that they stare back at him. “All, mall… It rhymes. That’s the… The joke.”

She hums in understatement while Trevor nods slowly and dramatically. “Weak, but okay. Next! You, in the flannel jacket and glasses.”

“I… Okay. I-it’s bad, but here it goes. What’s brown and sticky?”

“Is this-” Trevor slams the hand on the pillar and makes people jump on their places. "Is this a shit joke?"

“I mean… It’s shitty, but not about shit.”

“Alright,” Trevor started pacing again. “Repeat it from the beginning.”

“Yes, sir. W-what’s brown and sticky??? A stick.”

Trevor stops in place and considers putting a bullet on him. His thoughts are interrupted by Ellen who has one gloved hand on the door for support while she laughs like Donald Duck. Soon others are shyly laughing too because it’s honestly ridiculous. She breathes in deeply and cleans the throat.

“Oh God, okay, I have one... What did the grape say when it was stepped on?”

“Time to go!”

Joe cuts the joke when he shows up in the entrance, checks the exit before signaling it’s safe for Ellen to move out, arm around a heavy bag full of cash. Michael joins them soon after with another one and pats Trevor on the back. He stops to hold the door open for him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you forget a thousand things everyday…”

“…Make sure you take your meds, yeahyeahyeah. You’re so fucking lam-”

Trevor is almost at the door when he hears the angry shout. He sees in slow motion when the bulky man comes from near that ugly plant vase on his side and grabs him by the wrist jerking his body backward. Something snaps and a bunch of small things fly in the air to spread around the room. With a quick look at the wrist, Trevor sees that his bracelet was broken and at that moment something inside him breaks too. There's a piercing pain on his stomach and he feels like he’s burning all over.

The guy says  _ 'I’m not letting you walk away free after terrorizing us,' _ or at least that what he remembers before the  _ 'you son of a bitch' _ part. Then things go back into full motion when Trevor puts the end of his shotgun in between the man’s eyes and pulls the trigger watching it explode. He feels numb. Maybe it’s the ringing noise of the shot or the panic screams from the woman who got covered in brain matter before he shoots her in the chest too or the shot who caught a third guy standing near them, but when Michael pulls him outside he just allows it.

Trevor stumbles a few steps away from the van to lean against the wall.

“T! Honestly man, this is not the time to… T?” The world spins when Michael shakes him by the shoulders, his mouth feels dry. “Wha- Fuck, you’re bleeding. The bastard stabbed you.”

“Did he?”

Michael yells to Joe to bring the van closer and the next thing Trevor knows is that he’s laying on the back of it. Someone had taken his mask and shirt off to see the size and seriousness of the damage.

“Ellen put pressure! Make sure he keeps talking!”

“Hey pal…” she takes off her balaclava to press it against the wound, throwing the previous cloth that was now drenched in blood away. Her auburn hair makes Trevor smile. “T? T... Are you wearing fake eyelashes?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, so there’s something different! I knew it.” Michael’s voice comes from somewhere and the van rocks making things at the medical bag click against each other. “She did it again, huh?”

“She’s going to be so upset about the bracelet… Fuck.”

“Hey, if none of your organs were sliced she was right about it being a lucky charm.”

“Look, can we hurry and do our part?” the woman picks something else to make pressure into his abdomen, their eyes meet again. “Stay awake, alright?”

“Okay, ma.”

“Did you call me ma?”

She squints her hazel eyes, he giggles and when Joe turns right on a road somewhere the street light coming from the window hits the golden earring she’s wearing and paints her a yellow halo. That magnificent and holy woman. Trevor puts the hand over hers.

“Uhm, hey T, do you want to know the end of the joke?”

He hums in agreement and Michael appears at the corner of his view to look at the wound, cursing under his breath.

“So the…” she looks at his bleeding torso and grimaces, looking back at him. “The grape says nothing, it just lets out a little wine. Get it?”

Trevor tries to nod, but he’s too dizzy. He wants to curl up on her lap and ask her to play with his hair, please, just for a while, he promises he’ll be a good boy. Michael stops him from doing it, brings him back to reality, to watch the woman’s face morph back to what really is like, her caramel curls and black eyes.

Losing the sight of his mother makes him roar or maybe it’s the stitches Michael’s giving him. Without proper tools to check for internal bleeding, the lack of shortness of breath, chest pain or vomiting, and bleeding from anywhere else would have to be the basis from the diagnosis making closing off the wound the best option at hand. It was a big risk but was all they had.

When his eyes open again they’re greeted by a moldy ceiling that has a glass bowl filled with dead bugs, but at least it’s not the roof of a van or the metal of a morgue bed. The thought it makes him relieved to be back at that filth room is almost funny. How he made it to the motel was a familiar mystery he didn’t mind solving. It didn’t matter. The day didn’t go as planned, however, he’s still breathing and Michael is breathing against his shoulder with a hand on top of his heart while a stupid black and white movie they’ve seen a hundred times plays on the old TV. That’s good enough for his books.

Only a dozen days later he crosses the Townley’s front door of the small trailer park house to be greeted by an excited yelp of two children and a fake cheer from Amanda.

“Uncle T, look what I got!” Jimmy hops in one foot to show the scrape on the right knee. “Dad said it might leave a scar!”

“It might! Did you get this one trying to grab cookies from the top shelves again?”

“No, I was biking. It’s really dangerous outside.” the boy rests his hands on the waist and nods sorrowful as if he knew anything about pain. “How did you get the one in your face?”

“Which one?”

Jimmy points to his own upper lip where it was possible to see the scar on Trevor’s recently shaved face.

“Oh, this one. It was an ice skate blade to the face during a hockey game.” Trevor sighs at the memories and sings songs. “Things got pret-ty wild.”

“I’m never playing sports again… In fact, I don’t think I ever want to go back outside.”

“How about the waffle houses and the junk-food drive-ins and the ice cream shops…”

“I can ask mom to bring those to me.” Jimmy shrugs confidently.

“Guess you’re right. Talking about scars though… I got myself a new one.”

“Can we see it?” Tracey appears in the living room with her mother, gets closer to them.

Michael shrugs and goes ahead and despises Amanda's displeased face across the room. Trevor raises the left side of the t-shirt just enough to reveal the dressing, lifting the side of it to expose the new almost 4 inches long stab wound across the skin of his stomach. The two kids headbutt trying to look closer at the same time and push each other until one of them succeeds.

“Ew.”

Jimmy grimaces and his body shake to get rid of the sensation creeping up the spine. When he takes a step behind already over it, Tracey smirks as if she had won a competition of who was tougher. Putting the pen she was holding behind her ear, it’s her time to shake her head.

“These stitches are a crime, uncle T. You’re supposed to make them close to each other and pierce close to the edge, not… This far away.”

Both men laugh and Trevor can see Amanda failing to bite down a smile from the kitchen, putting the ground beef stew leftover inside the old yellow refrigerator. Michael hums while finishing his beer to get her attention, let the empty bottle at the ground next to his feet. “How would you know that?”

“I know basic sewing.”

Trevor puts the dressing back in place without holding the laugh. “My personal nurse struggles with simple tasks, she’s trash.”

“Maybe your personal nurse was doing the best to save your life on the back of a moving vehicle while you laid there bleeding everywhere, dumbass.”

“Michael!”

Amanda knocks the door of the small cupboard closed and their eyes connect, hers are wide and serious and his cold. The kids are half curious if that description was what truly happened and half expecting a fight to break out between their parents.

“Don’t be dramatic Mikey, that’s not what happened. It would be easier for me to cut myself tripping in one of these empty bottles you leave on the floor all time time.”

Michael mumbles something under his breath and gets up, Amanda knocks another cabinet and he walks back to pick the bottle, throws it at the trash can harsher than needed.

So they had been arguing all morning… Before the day end, he will grab the Redwoods, slam the front door close and pace around. Amanda will clean a spotless piece of the counter until her fingers hurt, redo the knot on her hair tighter than needed, and then follow him outside. Trevor knows and by now, Tracey and Jimmy are old enough to know too.

“D-Does it hurt? The scar?” 

“A little bit, yeah.”

Jimmy exchanges a look with his sister and rubs the ear, anxious. Tracey’s eyes follow her dad’s movement in the other room, but then she sighs briefly and turns back to Trevor.

“It’ll be better soon, right?”

“I’m sure it will, buttercup.”

“Here! This will help.”

She grabs the pen to draw a smiley face on his skin near the scar. After patting her on the head Trevor sits down carefully, sucking the breath in when the stitches tug his skin. He rests a hand on top of the wound.

“Wow, well done Trace, you just gave him ink poisoning on top of the wound.”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Yeah, you did.” Jimmy pulls a lollipop from the pocket of his jeans and smugly puts it on his mouth, leaving the wrapping on the chesterfield next to him. “You can get ink poisoning by using a pen on your skin.”

“Bullshit!”

Something falls in the bedroom. Amanda puts the final plate away and it clashes into another. “Tracey! Use kinder words.”

“I’ll be kinder when Jimmy stops being a jerk!”

“It’s not my fault you’re dumb!”

With a screech noise Tracey jumps on her brother and besides trying not to laugh about the scene, Trevor can’t be fast or do much to stop it before the girl already dragged the pen all over the boy’s face. Amanda runs to them after Jimmy cries out for her like he always does. She wraps the arms around her daughter's torso to pull the girl away between the two pairs of legs kicking each other.

“Michael! Mi-Tracey, stop kicking your brother- _ Michael _ ! Can you come help me with the kids?”

He shows up still looking annoyed. “Trevor is right there, you can ask for his help!”

“Trevor is not their dad, you are.”

“I don’t know if I’m sure about that…”

“Excuse me?”

Trevor hisses. That was bad and Michael realizes it fast. He sighs, shifts the weight from one leg to the other knowing he messed up.

“‘Manda…”

“I swear that if e-”

“Fuc-Shit. I’m sorry, babe. Let me-”

“Ouch!  _ MOM! _ ”

Tracey was already back on top of Jimmy but this time she’s punching him and when Amanda finally tugs her away from her brother again, he’s coughing. Michael runs to pull the lollipop out of his mouth and rubs his back in gentle circles. “Jimbo, breath. Come on son, it’s okay, you’ll be fine.”

His face wet with tears and snot, completely scribbled, the hair tousled. Tracey stops struggling against their mother. Like her dad, she knows she messed things up too.

“Dad…”

“You need to stop this, Tracey. Do you see what you’ve done to your brother?” Jimmy sobs and Tracey hugs herself. Michael isn’t screaming, he’s serious and stern. “The punching, the whole fighting… Needs to stop.”

“But you and mo-”

“The punching needs to  _ stop _ , Tracey. Do you understand?”

“I’m sorry dad.”

Michael helps the boy up and guides him to the washroom to clean his face, calls for Amanda asking her to bring him some water a few moments later. Tracey doesn’t wait for the mother to tell her to go to the room even though she does that anyway, storms out even if Amanda’s voice is softer than before.

On the way to join her husband, a glass of water in one hand and a clean towel on the other, the woman stops in the middle of the room and sighs.

“Can you check on her?” She's biting the inside of the cheeks and Trevor knows she rather had a mouth full of bees than to ask him for help. Still, he waits. “Please?”

Trevor nods and when her voice is back to a soft tone while talking to the other kid in the washroom, Trevor slowly gets up to follow Tracey. She’s sitting on her bed, hugging the legs and crying. The sound, the sight, so familiar and foreign at the same time makes him feel sick and angry. She hears the crack of his bones when the hands close into fists and looks up to him in silence.

“Mind if I join you?”

The girl shakes her head, pulls the sleeves to cover her hands and sniffs. Leaving the door open, Trevor steps inside to sit on the opposite end of the bed respecting her space. He pushes some of the pencil crayons out of the way on the mattress and grimaces feeling the stab wound sting.

“Your brother will be fine. Turns out the whole ink poisoning from pens is total bullshit.” she chuckles and it makes more tears to roll out her eyes to drip from her chin into the jeans. Trevor clicks the tongue. “I have a confession to make.”

“What is it?”

He pulls the sleeve up to show his naked wrist. “My bracelet broke… I’m sorry.”

Tracey looks at him for a while and then chuckles again, pulls her sleeve up to reveal there’s none there either. “I broke mine too, but it’s fine, we don’t need it. I think dad was right… Maybe they’re stupid.” Trevor gives her a moment of silence. Her voice is barely a whisper. “Dad hates me.”

“No, little moose, he doesn’t.”

“He totally does, uncle T. He loves Jimmy more, he’s different with him. Did you know that yesterday they went out just the two and had ice cream? Dad never wants to do shit with me and I’ve tried so many things! He doesn’t play with dolls, he doesn’t like scrapbooking, doesn’t like singing, doesn’t like dancing…” she wipes the face on the sleeves and shrugs. “I have a ballet presentation in two weeks and asked him to help me rehearse it and he said I should just ask mom. He… He doesn’t love me.”

The man considers telling her how her parents were debating what was wrong with Jimmy. Even though their diets were basically the same and not that abundant given their unstable financial situation, the boy was gaining weight quickly. He had lost interest in outdoor activities despite Michael's attempts to get him excited about football like he was once. Jimmy was always tired, was smaller than the other boys his age and just wasn’t developing as he should. Michael had shrugged it off in the beginning, telling Amanda the boy was simply a late bloomer child but now she was the one having to calm him down telling him the results would come soon and would be good ones.

Trevor decides against mentioning the whole thing, he knew how even if the siblings were always arguing, they were close. It made him happy to see it. Made him wish he could have had that with Ryan. Cleaning the throat, Trevor reaches for a pencil crayon and notebook, turning a white page.

“Have you ever seen a porcupine?”

She seems confused, dries the last two tears on her cheek, and looks at the paper when he starts drawing. “It’s like a hedgehog?”

“Well, yeah, it’s the same shit… Hedgehogs need to huddle themselves in the winter to avoid freezing to death. It sucks because they have the spines or whatever the fuck the right word is, it keeps them from warming themselves for too long.”

He holds the paper out for her to see the picture of a hedgehog and with the blue pencil crayon, Trevor colors the eyes of the sketch.

“Your father is a hedgehog, Trace. He can’t accept or give love without stinging. However, that also doesn’t mean he doesn't need it or want it, he just doesn’t know how.”

Tracey nods despite the small frown in between the eyes. He pulls the paperback to draw again.

“Most people out there… Pff, they are balloons. Plastic, weak, stupid balloons, okay? They explode with the slightest poke. Hedgehogs learned that if they want to protect others from the spines, they need to keep the distance, even if it means freezing their asses off. But we Tracey… We’re not balloons, are we?”

“No, but… What are we?”

In the paper, next to the hedgehog, he sketches a young turtle with pigtails and identical blue eyes. She chuckles and hugs the notebook closer to her chest, secretly remembering that night when she watched him and her dad have a fight in the backyard, how it seemed he couldn’t stand to be embraced, how uncle T did it even if it seemed to hurt.

“We’re turtles.” after giving a light pinch on the tip of her nose, Trevor claps. “Now let’s go, show me the ballet moves! Did you say two weeks? Ple-ase. I bet I can learn all of them and steal your place on the stage by them.”

“You wish, uncle T!”

He doesn’t know how long she has been there, but from the corner of the eyes, he sees Amanda lifting the head from the door frame, smiling at the sight of her daughter's messy dance in the small room. Their eyes meet and she nods. Trevor nods back.

  
  



	7. Amanda, 2001

“Dad?”

Michael turns around, holding the door open. “Yes, princess?”

“Will you see uncle T there?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” he adjusts the bag on the shoulder, smirks when she shoots him a bad look. “Why?”

“Can you ask him to call me, please?”

He exchanges a look with Amanda, both have eyebrows raised at the request. Tracey licks the red jam out of her palm and bites the toast.

“Call you?”

“Yes, I need to ask him something…”

“Alright… Do you wanna tell us what that would be?”

“Why?” it’s her time to look at them with raised eyebrows. “Uhm, is just that next Friday is Best Friend Day at school.”

“Oh! I loved those. Those were the best…” Amanda finishes pouring a glass of smoothie to Jimmy, pats him in the head ignoring his usual complaints about how awful it tasted. “Right, Michael?”

She pulls her husband back inside and nods towards their daughter. The woman had picked up some books at the tiny public library of the town. Now Tracey was getting into the preteen phase Amanda felt they would need all the help they could get and according to one of the bestsellers' author, they needed to take every opportunity when the kids demonstrated to open up for a conversation about their interests, activities or hobbies. Amanda would prefer her daughter wouldn’t be so attached to Trevor of all people, but then again, she couldn’t blame her when her dad was just the same.

Michael stumbles after being shoved closer to the counter and crosses the arms in front of the chest. Amanda uncrosses it.  _ ‘Open chest means no barriers,’  _ she remembers from the body language book,  _ ‘means being open and welcoming.’ _

“Fuckin’ A…”

She leans closer and snarls trying to fight back the growing anger for his resistance and hastiness to leave the house. “ _ Listen to her. _ ”

“I’m  _ listening _ .” he snarls back but undo the knot on his forehead before going back to their daughter, softens the voice. “Best Friend Day, nice! Who’ll you take? Miss Fluffles?”

Tracey stops keeping an eye on her plate for her brother's sneaky fingers to send a look towards her dad and Jimmy manages to grab one of her bacon stripes. Amanda is too distracted facepalming to notice.

Miss Fluffles was dusting on the corner of the girl wardrobe for two  _ years _ now. Miss Fluffles II, actually. The first was lost at the gas station of Moffit on their way to a trip to see her maternal grandparents for an even longer time before that, but they hoped Tracey had never noticed that. She secretly did.

“No dad, not that old toy.”

“That girl next door? Uhm, Valarie, right? Johnson's kid?”

She sighs, ready to slap her brother's hand off her plate when Amanda grabs his wrist to move it away from it and towards the glass in front of him.

“You mean Violet…”

“Violet! She seems cool.”

“I’m taking uncle T.”

“T?” he laughs wholeheartedly while playing with the keys in his jacket pocket. Amanda doesn't need a book to read the body language of a man who can't wait to escape from his responsibilities. She breathes in and out to fight the urge to throw something at him. “You want to take Trevor Philips to your school? A room full of grade 3s?”

The girl shrugs and puts the juice box down. “What’s wrong with that?”

“He’s an adult honey, I think your teachers were thinking you should bring someone more around your age.”

Amanda runs her fingers through the blonde hair, combing the bangs behind and joining the golden locks on a high ponytail first, then a knot. She looks at Michael with slight panic, imagining the disastrous possible outcomes of it in silence.

Her mind goes back to Saturday afternoon when Michael had her pressed against the bathroom sink, hands spreading her legs to pull their hips closer, hot mouth on her neck, and promises on her ear until her body was limp against him. She remembers being thankful to the phone ringing for muffling the noises they were doing, but soon it ended she cursed the annoying reminder they weren’t twenty, fucking in a club after taking party drugs and snorting lines of coke. Those days were gone, long gone. She remembers holding his face while he started moving away, kissing his jaw and cheek and the corner of his thin lips and hating how they didn’t have time to just hold each other anymore. Sure that’s the reason Michael just gives her a peck before stepping away, they don’t have time, that’s all there is to it.

“Mom! The phone is ringing!”

She sighed because anything other than a quickie was luxury these days and don’t even get her started on naked sex. That would be an extravagance. Amanda never thought she would miss the good old missionary but damn, at least would give her legs some break from all the running around the house to keep things running smoothly while Michael did what he did. She remembers the time he used to fuck her in the spooning position and sighs.

“We should save up to travel somewhere on our birthday, you know?” she wiped herself, adjusted the panties and the skirt back in place while her husband pulled the zipper back up. “Just us.”

“Uhm, maybe…”

“Michael?” she snapped the fingers to call him back to Earth.

“Sorry, I’m just thinking… Well, your step dad's still recovering from the heart problem, we can’t let the kids with your mom…”

“What about your parents?”

He snorted, looked to the mirror behind her to fix his hair. For a moment there was silence then the two kids outside dropped something and started an argument over it.

“Not in chance in the world.”

“Fine. Maybe the Johnson’s can watch them?” she looked at the ceiling imagining the light bulb was the warm sun for a while. “We don’t need to go far or stay for long, maybe Medora? There’s even a spa there, people say it’s really good. Michael… Are you listening?”

“Yes Amanda, I’m listening… I would love to, I’ll see what I can do about the money, okay?”

He smiled at her blank face and pulled her for a kiss she didn’t correspond just to piss him off. It worked because his hand cooped her boob once again, only that this time instead of a gentle tease his fingers pinched her nipple hard enough to make her hiss in pain. He wasn’t fast enough to fully protect himself from the punch she landed on his balls. Outside, the phone started ringing again.

“Mom! The phone is ringing again!”

“Piece of shit!” she rubbed the breast with the palm of one hand and tried to punch him again with the other. He held her fist to pull her close and kiss her temple repeatedly on a silent apology. “I’ll be right there, bub!”

“I’ll go, you check what they broke this time.”

When Amanda came back from the kid's room with a broken toy at hand, Michael was frowning and breathing erratically. The first thing to cross her mind was his parents so she dumped the remains of the toy at the trash can and rushed to her husband’s side, watching his expressions getting more and more afflicted.

“-ou has to stay calm, can you do that for me? Please, I need you to breathe and don’t do anything stupid,  _ please _ .” she couldn’t make out the noises on the call from where she was standing but it was chaotic and loud enough for her to know it wasn’t about their family. “T, I’m on my way. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Michael hung up the phone and he looked so serious she didn’t even have the heart to scold him for anything.

“I think I need your help.”

Part of her thought, or better yet, knew that was completely insane. Leaving her two children with their neighborhoods at dusk to drive hours to God-knows-where is the hole Trevor Philips crawl to when he’s not chasing her husband like a puppy dog.

She wanted to tell Michael that he’s a grown up man who robs, steals, and kills people who must be capable enough to deal with his own domestic issues. She wanted to say he had just messed up the combination of drugs this time, took too many downers, and was feeling lonely because nobody in the world could stand him and what the fuck could she, of all people, do to help? What made him think she  _ wanted _ to get involved?

However, the urgency in which Michael had speed on the freeway with white knuckles and dry mouth was enough to tell her that maybe she wasn’t there for Trevor’s sake after all, but for his and that Michael wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t really think it was needed. That realization had made her shiver in the passenger seat.

They drove for more than an hour before she stopped recognizing the roads, the upcoming towns started having names she couldn’t pronounce so the woman knew they were getting closer to the border. Maybe it was just her imagination, but there were so many empty fields and plain  _ nothing _ for miles. It felt colder and unsettling but Michael seemed to know exactly where he was going. She didn’t have the courage to ask him why or how.

He stopped the car in a sinister trailer park that only made her shiver even more. Everything around there was dirty, dark and menacingly like a real-life horror movie set. There were random scratching noises coming from underneath one of the homes, dry blood handprints on some walls, broken utensils and furniture in between piles of trash. Amanda had felt unsafe in her life before but nothing that far had made her feel like she felt when she heard the car door opening right there.

“Michael… What t-”

“Stay behind me, alright?”

Amanda did just that and together they walked to the second door to the left where she could hear the loud familiar voice. He knocked softly, turned the doorknob and it opened to reveal the interior. The woman covered her mouth and nose to the smell of the untidy, moldy and greasy crumpled place trying not to vomit. Michael just grimaced, looked around anxiously until finding who he was looking for.

“T? Trevor, look at me buddy, hey!”

“Mikey.”

Amanda had seen people in bad shape before. She had seen filthy drunk guys, fucked up junkies on PCP, one of her friends from the stripping days OD’d in the champagne room once and after giving birth she learned a whole new color scheme of shades of puke, shit and snot. She had seen Trevor cry and yell and destroy things with his bare hands until his flesh was torn and bloody, but she had never heard him sob so broken, so vulnerable like that. It felt surreal, it felt... Wrong.

“I’m here now, T. Where’s she? Where’s your mom?”

“M-ma’s not answering me Mikey, she-she’s not ans-wering m-me.”

“It’s okay, it’ll be okay.”

“What's-she’s doing here?”

From the corner he was, Trevor stared at her for the first time. She didn’t know how he managed to curl himself to make his slim body look so small, but he did, so much that from where she was standing it was hard to believe that man was the same one who caused so much terror across the Midwest. Pulling the hair off his head, fragile, wounded. More out of motherly instinct than anything, Amanda squatted down next to him and could barely believe how soft her voice was when it left her mouth.

“I want to help. I’m going to talk to her while Michael keeps you company, alright? Is that okay for you?”

He looked at Michael, eyes red and puffy and flushed face and then back at her. He sobbed and hiccupped, gestured to the small door ahead. Amanda exchanged a look with her husband for a brief second before walking towards it hoping the woman inside wasn’t dead or worse. She knocked but didn’t get any answer. Taking one of her hairpins from her head, she managed to unlock it.

The woman was lying on the box floor. The blood was pooling beneath her, eye socket turning purple and bruised face covered in small cuts from punches. Despite everything, she was breathing. Amanda felt sick. She wanted to run. Close the door, pull Michael with her and run away from all that, whatever it was.

“Who the  _ fuck _ are you?”

Her voice gave away the number of cigars she must have had throughout her life, the English accent surprised Amanda. “My name is Amanda, I’m here to help you.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Who… Who did this to you? Was it…" she stepped closer and knelt to keep the voice lower as possible. "Was it Trevor?”

The woman laughed, coughed and spat blood everywhere including Amanda’s favorite sweater. “He would never! He’s nothing but a useless boy, that one. I just had a bad day at work.”

Amanda noticed the glitter on the woman's face and arms.  _ ‘Booty dust’ _ , she remembered from back in the day at the clubs. “Huckster?”

The code word for aggressive customers had done the trick and when their eyes met Amanda knew she gained some of her trust. The sorority feeling between women who had similar lives experiences creating a safe space for openly exchange the painful stories of abuse without being condemned or blamed for it. So Mrs. Philips talked and Amanda sat and listened, held her skinny hand on both of hers. They had cried and then they had wiped the tears to move on because that’s what they felt like it was all they could do at the moment.

Amanda helped her stand up and take a shower, washed the blood and dirt from her bruised aging body and reddish hair. She had spat blood and a tooth at the floor shivered and hissed despite the soft touches. After leaving a change of clothes and the cleanest towel she could find in her hands, Amanda left the bathroom and closed the door behind herself.

“How’s she?” Trevor had stopped crying and was back to his wired self.

“She’s okay, but it would be better to take her to the hospital for a check up. She had a really rough night…” they looked at her and Amanda held their stare until she couldn’t anymore. Trevor hurled the beer bottle against the wall making glass and liquid fly everywhere. “Look, I…”

“ _ Who did this? _ ”

“Trevor… I don’t know.”

“I swear to good Lord above Amanda,” he snarled as his body vibrated with built-up anger. “You don’t want to fucking lie to me right now.”

She crossed the arms and stepped back and he tried to step forward, but Michael held him by the shoulders telling him to calm down.

“Fucking tell me!” he yelled loud enough to make her jump. “Tell me the bastard name so I can fucking kill him!”

“I… She didn’t tell me their names. All I know is that they stole the money she made, beat her up and that it was somewhere between Carbury and So-Souris?”

Something flicked on him, she could literally see through his wide, black, hollow eyes and it made her paralyzed. There was a loud bang from a door being slammed and the next thing she knew he was already out with Michael behind him. She tried to calm down her breathing, to stop shaking from head to toe from all the intensity and fear as they argued outside.

“-ot leaving like this by yourself.”

“You want me to sit here and do nothing?”

“No, I want you to be smart! T…”

“You’ll not convince me, Townley! Not this time, not about this.”

“Fuck, Trevor! Just think about it for a second! You’ll do something stupid and get arrested! Then what? Huh? What about me? What abou-” his phrases were cut short for some reason. After five seconds of silence, Michael sighed. “Don't do this, T…”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Michael came back inside and closed the door with a loud bang, finished up the beer he was having before in one gulp and started pacing around. “This is bad. He’ll get himself in trouble and get me in trouble and then… Oh my God, this is bad.”

“Should we take Mrs. Philips to the hospital?”

“What? No.” he looked at her like she was insane. “She’s wanted for a bunch of shit, she would go straight to jail.”

“Michael, she was beaten up. If she has internal damage that we can’t see…”

“She can fucking die here for all I fucking care.”

“Michael!”

She held his forearm to stop him in his tracks and let go of it after finding the same flick Trevor had moments earlier through her husband's blue eyes… It was rage, turmoil, insanity. Michael turned to face her and got closer while passing the hand through his hair.

“Do you know what she used to do with Trevor? Do you know he has scars on his ankles because she used to chain him to a bed when he was Jimmy’s age? She used to tell him it’s because she loved him and didn’t want him to leave…”

Amanda hugged herself trying not to imagine her son in a situation like that, averting the eyes away from his to the pool of beer forming underneath her boots.

“…Or that she used to kick him out of the house in January? In the middle of blizzards? All that because he couldn’t eat all of the burnt roadkill she had put on the table. Or how she allowed one of her boyfriends to keep him from crying at night by locking him in a cabinet? Did you know that she… She-”

“Don’t say it.”

She had covered the ears tightly and closed the eyes to keep it all out of her head. Opening the eyes again, she watched him walking around again, ragged breathing.

“Trevor is a hell on earth. He is ‘Manda, but that’s because that's all he ever knew and that’s on her!”

Just a few minutes later, a door clicked closed behind Amanda. The smell of soap only made the ambient more nauseating when mixed with the nasty odor of dirt.

“So we meet again…” Mrs. Philips joined them in the room, slowly sitting down on an old wood chair. “Can’t say it’s a pleasure.”

Michael snorted and raised the eyebrows, hid the hands inside the pockets. “That we can agree.”

“Be nice and massage my feet or pour me a drink, would you, boy?”

“No, I wouldn’t. Unless you want me to put rat poison on it.”

Amanda noticed how much her husband despised her with hate she only ever saw him directing towards his own father. When she looked at the old woman, she felt betrayed and confused all at once. There was this desire on her to believe Mrs. Philips had done sacrifices, made the best with the little she had to provide to her kids, but at the same time, she was as a mother herself who just could never accept some of the things she seemed to have done to them.

“Are you happy with what you’ve done?” Michael snarled bitterly.

“I haven’t done a thing besides coming home from work to find him here, doing nothing but taking space, asking questions.” She rolled her eyes and waved her hand. “ _ But Ma, but Ma, but Ma. _ Ugh! If he was a good boy, he’d be here taking care of me right now.”

She managed to reach for a used cup on the sink and get a bottle on the near cabinet, popping two pills of Deludamol into her mouth before taking a sip of the amber liquid.

“There was always something wrong with him. I knew it… I knew it as soon as the fisherman handed him to me.” She lit a cigarette from the counter and took a drag. “He has always been an ungrateful, wretched, sniveling sack of shit of a boy.”

“All you fucking do is hurt him…” disturbed, Michael picked up the car keys from the pocket and extended the other hand for Amanda to hold it. “That’s all you've ever done. One of these days you’ll die, Betty, all alone and miserable. He’ll be better without you.”

The drive back home was silent between them, the only voice was from the radio. Michael kept changing stations to listen if there was any news about chaos and massacres and arson anywhere. The sun was almost out when they entered Bismarck again and for some reason, that’s when Amanda broke down crying.

She felt drained, heartbroken and angry. Angry for being taken out of her house and dragged to a repugnant ambient like that, for being put in the position she had to revisit some of the worst memories from her past, for being somewhat responsible for the death of whoever crossed that madman’s path tonight. She was angry for being reminded that Trevor wasn’t a beast out to make her life a living hell, but a fragile human being. She was angry for seeing and getting to know that side of Trevor’s life and how that made her feel about him. How desolated she was for him and the child he once was, the one he didn’t have the chance to be.

Trevor. Who was never supposed to be more than a guy she met on a dingy strip club in the skirts of Linton during Lester’s birthday, but who ended up being the best man at her wedding months later, standing behind her husband and who had never left since. Trevor, who made his way into her home and her children’s heart, who seemed to grow over them like a shadow, spread out like some sickness, poison, taint and take. Take, take, take, always take. All the killing, the drugs, the instability and uncertainty that ruled Trevor’s life tangled on Michael’s life… In her life.

The car stopped so Michael could hug her tightly. As she cried against him with abandon, he sunk the fingers on her hair to caress her scalp and calm her down.

“We have… We have to be better, Michael. We  _ have _ to.”

“I know, babe. I know.”

She didn’t know if he was being serious about it because she didn't even know entirely what she meant by that statement, but she hoped he was. For the sake of their family, she hoped he was.

Despite the TV news about the aftermath of that night, which Amanda did her best to ignore when it came up, there was no news from Trevor for two entire months. When they were out shopping, Michael would go to a payphone while she loaded the car and after gesturing they were ready to go, she could hear him tell Lester to keep him informed before hanging up. One time, Amanda was about to knock on the glass to call him out of the booth when she heard a mention about the morgue documents of a woman who matched Mrs. Philips's description. That day, she dropped her hand and waited in the car with a heavy heart.

Another month and a half went by. She tried to calm Michael down saying it was just a sign that Trevor was laying low somewhere only once. The argument that followed it, the screaming and name-calling exchanged left her with a sour aftertaste. After that, she just ignored his restlessness and insomnia, bought him extra packs of cigarettes from the market only to watch them disappear in two days. Instead of comforting him, she comforted the kids which weren't easier but didn't cost her as much as Redwoods.

Four nights ago the phone rang past 3 AM and she sleepily rolled on the bed to see Michael breathe out and relax for the first time in many weeks. When the call was over, he locked the door before crawling back to bed saying everything was alright in between soft, sweet kisses she couldn’t help but melt into. He breathed out apologies and  _ 'i love you's' _ into her mouth while sliding the cock completely in and out of her on a tortuous slow rhythm until she was crying for more. He breathed out apologies and  _ 'i love you's' _ into her mouth and she breathed them in.

Now, the day of heading to whatever hole he and his buddies hid before a job, Michael's eyes go from her to their daughter. Tracey wasn’t bulging. She looked back at her mom with cold, sharp, precise blue eyes just like his.

“I don’t care. Uncle T is my best friend in the whole entire world.”

“I-I know, sweetie.” she kisses the top of her head, eyes closed tightly for a moment. “I’m sure your dad will speak to him.”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll tell him to give you a call, alright?”

It doesn’t take 24 hours for the call to come. Tracey barely let it ring before holding the handset against the ear. Amanda pulls her close and the girl accepts the silent invitation to sit on her lap so she’s near enough to hear both sides of the conversation.

“Hello?”

“Hey, polkaroo! How’s my buttercup doing?”

She smiles so big hearing his voice that it makes Amanda’s chest feel tight. Tracey sees Jimmy running to them and frowns, holding the phone with both hands.

“I miss you, uncle T!”

“I know, I miss you too. Is that Jimbo with you?”

“Yeah, he’s here. Wait.” she passes to the boy and leans against their mom who rubs her back lovingly. “Be quick Jimmy, I need to ask him something.”

“Hi, uncle T! You missed my birthday party… Really? What is it? Uhm, okay, I can wait. The school’s alright. Ew, no, girls suck. Bo-Uhm, no?” he chuckles and shakes the head. “You’re a funny guy. Yeah, mom still makes me drink those juices… ”

Grunting, Tracey grabs the phone by its cord to try pulling it off his hand. Jimmy pulls it in the opposite direction, almost breaking the thing. Amanda has to intervene trying to untangle the girl's fingers.

“The freaking troll I have as a sister is acting up, I have to go now. Alright. See you soon.”

Out of reflex and practice, Amanda is able to hold her daughter’s ankle down right before it hits her brother right in between the legs. When Jimmy runs back to his room to play and the handset is at her hands, Tracey’s smiling again. “So when you’re visiting?”

“Soon.”

“How soon?”

“Some weeks.”

“How many? You can’t fool me with this anymore. You taught me time measurement, remember? If you say 10 weeks that means another two and a half months! I can’t wait that long.”

Amanda hears him laughing on the other side, God knows how many miles from them.

“I promise you it won’t take that long, but your dad and I have a big job to do in a couple of days so it will take a little while.”

“So I guess you won’t be able to go to my Best Friend Day at school then…”

“Yeah, I won’t. I’m sorry, little moose, I really am.”

She remains silent for a moment, index finger-twisting itself on the cord of the phone. Amanda suppresses the sadness of seeing her like that with the relief of not having to deal with the mess that would be having Trevor in a school surrounded by sweet, innocent children.

“It’s alright, you’re my best friend forever so there’s always next year.”

“Best friend forever, I like that.”

“Is that dad?” she must catch something in the background that Amanda can’t. Tracey giggles, resting the head on her chest. “I can hear him mumbling.”

“Yeah, he is getting je-lous… He said I’m  _ his _ best friend.”

“No? Ha, as if.”

“He said he met me first...”

“Well, I don’t care.”

They laugh and Amanda hugs her tightly, wishing she was just a baby still, resting her head on top of hers while rocking their bodies side by side softly.

“I have to go now buttercup, your dad’s hungry, as usual.”

“Okay, see you guys soon! Love you millions.”

“I love you millions too, kiddo.”

He hangs up and the two girls stay there enjoying each other’s company for a while longer while the yellow refrigerator buzzes faintly and Jimmy plays in the next room. Once again, is just the three of them.

She’s stressed out of her mind when Tracey asks for the hundred times what made uncle T disappear for so long. Amanda’s alone with Jimmy burning in fever, the dinner ruined inside the oven and the girl's mood swings jumping to both extremes without any sort of pattern so she says it at once. Trevor's mom’s dead.

It scares Tracey and makes Amanda feel guilty so when the medicine finally regulates her son's temperature and their stomach are filled with pizza, she sits down with her daughter to explain. She wishes Michael was there to help, but then again, she always did. Even if it puts an end to the questions and calms her down, from the look at Tracey’s face, she doesn’t know if she had done a good job.

Weeks later Michael comes back home with Trevor by his side and it’s a loud mess. Especially because Jimmy opens the gift he brought to find a brand new Game Boy Color. Tracey holds their dad close even after he straightens himself up and pat her on the back repeatedly, her eyes remain tightly shut and a smile across the face. Then she moves to sink into Trevor’s open and waiting arms, stays there for a while until decides to step back to look at him.

“Are you okay?”

“Me? I’m fan-tastic. Why?”

“I’m sorry about your mom.” The music coming from the game Jimmy was already immersed into echoes on the walls of the room because of the sudden silence they all had fallen into. “I’m sorry she died.”

Not so discreetly, Amanda pulls Tracey closer to her, puts her body behind her own and steps to the right so she can cover her son from his view too. She looks at Michael with widened eyes and a dry mouth. He’s tense but waiting to hold the other man if he needs to.

Trevor gets up on his feet and blinks for a moment. Then he chuckles.

“Died? No, Ma’s doing fine! She’s back up north.”

He shrugs so casually, Michael relaxes and Amanda’s hold on Tracey’s shoulders does too. Maybe Lester was mistaken, after all, maybe the woman in the morgue was just somebody who looked like her. Trevor takes off the jacket and yaws.

“Ryan had been whining about wanting to go back on that stupid steam-powered locomotive since I can remember so she took him there, they’ll be back.”

Amanda frowns at Michael and watches him shake the head. From what she remembers from pieces and bits of conversations with her husband, Trevor’s brother has been dead for at least fifteen years. Jimmy squeals in excitement about something in the game. Tracey finally breaks free from her mother.

“Oh. I’m happy for you then! Glad to have you back.”

“And I’m glad to be back!” Trevor claps and rubs the hands together. “You better have dusted my teacup and made me some tea because I can’t wait to know everything I missed these months.”

Taking some of the ripped gift wrap papers off the ground, Amanda cleans her throat trying to sound casual and not worried at all. “Can mommy join you guys today?”

“We don’t mind!” Tracey puts an extra saucer on the table. “Right, uncle T?”

“Sure, but the flower hat it’s mine.”

  
  



	8. Intermission I - Amanda, 1991

“That’s so not the right shade for you.” Amanda's death stare connects with the other woman next to her in the mirror. She looks back with fake innocence and the bubble of gum she had been blowing air into pops loudly. “Just saying…”

“I know what the fuck I’m doing.”

“Do you?”

The woman sizes her up from the corner she’s standing near the lockers, giggles at something she sees. Putting down the lip gloss Amanda turns around on her heels to slowly walk towards her.

“Listen here, Ronald McDonald's sad-looking ass…” the other shuts up and frowns. “If I ever need tips from a clown you’ll be the first to know, but until then you can go f-”

“Hey! No fighting! What did you do now, Brandy?”

Angel’s heels click on the floor when she runs to stand in between the two. Her turquoise painted nails are a perfect match to the bodysuit that left close to nothing to the imagination when she hugs Amanda to move her away. She holds her close by the waist, making the curly blonde hair stick to her lip gloss and spreading glitter all over her.

“I was only trying to help.”

“You can help by shutting up and stop frowning these eyebrows at me or I’m going to wash them off from your face!” for a moment looks like Brandy will bring the discussion to another level, but then she just hurries outside. “And good luck finding another 3 years old to draw them again!”

She’s finally set free by Angel to fix her choker in place and pat down some of the glitters. The blonde shakes the head at her with a grin, puts the hands at the round waist.

“You’re such a bitch… I love it.”

Amanda turns to the mirror again to check if everything is perfect, fluffs her hair up and sighs. “Is it Cindy Crawford enough?”

“As Cindy Crawford as it can get.” she nods and Angel adjusts the strap of her leopard printed bra as other girls come by talking between themselves. “You better kill that stage and secure the clients today because she’ll be out to ruin your night.”

“Let her try.”

They share a smile and hear the last notes of What a Feeling leaking inside by the door when Madam opens it. “Krystal, time for your stage dance.”

Amanda nods before she disappears again. She allows herself to remember a few years ago when Madam was just mom and not her agent and keeper. When she and Angel… Well, she and Emily would braid each other's hair talking about what cute boy they wanted to ask them out for prom instead of doing homework in their shared bedroom. It seemed like ages ago now. Instead of a prom dress, she got a tiny set of lingerie and she learned that boys often would grow to be monsters.

She feels Angel’s chin on the joint of her shoulder and is pulled back to reality. Returning the smile, Amanda feels ready to get into the mood because after all, she had a spot as the best Linton town girl to protect and a dumb girl who thinks it’s enough competition to destroy. The other woman must see the change in her eyes because she steps away to smack her ass.

“Go get them.”

Amanda goes, checks the club from the stage curtain to see the movement. It’s not bad at all and she hopes it’s not a k-mart crowd with small tips. There are several groups of men and a dozen women too, which is always great. It’s incredibly motivating to hear cheers when you’re trying to do pole work and not break your neck at the same time. Men are too busy drooling and palming themselves through their pants, Amanda learns with time, but women always cheer for a sister.

There’s a group at the tip rail, the front row of seats around the stage. The sight makes her feel butterflies and the thought that’s the kind of shit that gives her a thrill nowadays makes her upset again for a moment. She breathes the thoughts out while stretching.

Four guys. They’re drinking and joking around not really paying any attention to the girl at the stage. She couldn’t blame them. Jade was a vulture, past retirement and always off the beat who would probably cry while dancing if she wasn’t too coked up. Who the fuck would get turned on by you stripping to Always by Bon Jovi anyway? That shit is just depressing, honestly.

“Def Leppard?”

Madam taps the top of her head like she used to do every time Amanda was hunched over books and that makes her adjust the posture automatically. Sadness’s about to start creeping in again when the older woman drops a pill on her hand. She nods an affirmative answer and gulps it down ignoring the bitter taste.

“There’s some big fish around tonight. The blond over there wearing a leather jacket's first move was chum the waters so…”

Jade passes through them while fixing her wig, nothing but a handful of popcorn bills at her free hand. Amanda watches the main lights go off and turn to blue.

“…Generous tips means he gets more attention for the rest of the evening.”

“Good girl.” The first beats of Pour Some Sugar on Me begin and the dry ice fills the stage. “Now go make me proud.”

Amanda can hear some of the old customers whistling when she walks towards the pole and even not seeing their faces, smiles and winks in their general direction. She can feel her heart speed starting to pick up and wonders if it’s the drugs kicking off or just the anticipation for the pole tricks even if doing that dance every week had made all the moves easy from the first touch of her palm to the cold metal forward. She could probably do that performance blindfolded by muscle memory alone by now, just wrap the fingers around the pole and let go of overthinking to simply put on a show.

It starts simply with an intro spin before climbing, moving it to a slip grip and switches, a push with the legs and a flare towards the public. Fireman spin and a shake of hips. A windmill with the legs before moving to cradle and Juliet spins. Then the per-chorus begins and she runs around the pole to gain speed, turning upside down so the legs hug the pole, twisting and climbing up with ease until she’s more than halfway up. Done, done, done.

Amanda slowly drops the upper body behind just in time with the chorus and the crowd cheer in between yelps of surprise from the new faces when her fingers leave the pole and the only thing keeping her from falling are the tights against the metal. She runs the hands through the stomach and breasts lazily, moves them around the neck and to the hair to finally stretch it towards the floor basking in the crowd's praises.

Her body slides down slowly until the palms meet the ground and with a small impulse forward the knees connect to it too. There are bills underneath her and more falling around from the blond guy in the rail tip so Amanda backs it up to him, allowing his fingers to slide some cash under the strap of her thong while she shakes the ass to the beat.

She can see all of them better now she’s up close doing floor work. One one of them is wearing a party hat, cleaning the glasses with the interior part of the edge of his checkered dress shirt hastily, putting them back on upside down for a moment before being helped by the blond guy. The birthday boy is a rock, don't toss her one single dollar. Whatever.

Then there’s an interesting one. He wasn’t all that different from the types of guy in town but there was something else, something more, something in that little smirk and fiery eyes that screams bad news in neon lights. Dangerous, witty, and... a George. He takes a bundle of bills from the bomber jacket pocket to make it rain all over her body. Amanda takes her time to dance for him, slow every movement down and sing along to the chorus. She wiggles the ass in the air, leans the upper body down and licks along the back of her hand to the tip of the index finger before sliding it inside her mouth under his hungry stare.

Next to him is a guy with blue eyes and dark hair, his legs and the thin lips are parted, a glass of whiskey making a damp spot on the armchair he’s sunk in. The sight of the bulge on his jeans is just as pleasing to her as the sight of the bulge a hack of cash is making from the inside pocket of his parka.

She slides to the edge of the stage in front of him, spreads her legs wide and leans forward, uses the indicator to invite him closer. Dropping the eyes to the soft front knot that’s holding her breasts on the bra does the job to transmit the message. The blue-eyed man undoes it and watches as the fabric gives up, the straps slide down the shoulders with a gentle jiggle and she’s topless. On a smooth move, Amanda passes the bra behind his neck to bring his face to her boobs making everybody cheer.

With a big jump back to the pole, going around and spinning on it Amanda feels the music is vibrating through her, feels the warmth of the spotlights as they paint her and the dollars they’re throwing at the stage in red. She feels everything tingling and she loves it. She loves the feeling of the cold metal on her hands while she spins around it and how every single pair of eyes are on the way her body moves to the beats, it gives her the energy to complete the rest of the tricks with the intensity that makes the entire club clap and shout at the end.

The thrill is so good that when she tries to catch her breath as the lights go back to normal she’s giggling like a kid. In moments like this, she’s just a dancer and a fucking amazing one too. She’s just being paid to perform acrobatic tricks to a crowd and by all the money there’s inside her bucket when she hurries backstage, she’s being paid handsomely. For a moment it’s good. Everything is just good and Amanda can’t wait until McDonald's girl sees her now.

She goes back to the club after refreshing herself, wearing a lace violet lingerie and once again on top of the heels. Amanda walks around the groups making small talk and trying to sweet talk them to buy private dances. She gets some sells, makes some new connections, celebrates it with the house sisters backstage while fixing the hair and makeup.

Next time Amanda finds the rail tip group they’re at the bar. The blue-eyed guy seems to argue with the weird one over something before tapping the pocket looking for cigarettes like her father used to do. He finds them, puts one on the lips even before starting heading outside.

Bambi approaches the rest of them before she can, starts talking, leaning against the counter and batting her eyelashes at the blond guy. She grunts to herself for losing the cutest guy in the club for Bambi. Fucking Bambi and her perfect, smooth, shiny, melanin-rich skin and even more captivating bright smile. The girl was so damn sweet and motivated that nobody in the club could even hate her for charming most of the guys, they were all charmed by her too. Amanda keeps stealing looks at the bar just to see her take him to the VIP rooms, hand in hand.

The weird guy meets her stare and his smirk makes her realize she had the arms crossed in front of the chest like a dumb jealous teenager all that time. He calls her closer with the head and despite the fact every single hair on the back of her neck stands up in some sort of primal warning, she goes. Like they already knew each other, the guy turns slightly on the stool so she can stop on the space in between his legs.

“Having fun tonight?” she puts the hand on his biceps and it’s surprised to find some good muscles there despite he lanky appearance, slides it up the back of his neck to scratch the skin lightly with the nails hearing him hum in approval. “Hope more than your friend over there at least.”

She nods towards the checkered shirt guy who’s drooling on the table with crooked glasses and a party hat.

“Lesty is a lightweight, it’s way past his bedtime anyway.”

When the weird guy talks it surprises her again, the voice and the accent. It makes her smile. “And the others left you on dad's duty?”

“Dad duty? No, no, no. If I were in dad duty I’d walk out of here and forget he even exists.” he’s so serious about it that makes her laugh, she tries to hide by covering the face with the freehand. “Too depressing, eh?”

“Yes,” Amanda fans the eyes in between laughs and remembers she’s supposed to be  _ nice _ to make sales. “No! I mean, I get it. My dad was a giant moron so my mom did her best with all the duties.”

Amanda bites the tongue thinking how that had sounded like a hurl story, the sad stories girls say to get bigger tips and how she always hated that. It makes her want to spin on the heels and leave by how much she’s embarrassed. She curses internally, remembers she’s supposed to guide the conversation away from awkward situations and braces herself for some stupid comment… Amanda expects him to make one of those bad pick lines about how he can be her daddy and so on, but he looks somewhere at the stage and just nods before looking back at her.

“Same, actually. But fuck them.” he reaches to drag the sleeping guy drink close to them, dips the finger into what she guessed was salt to lick it clean and raises the shot glass filled to the brim. “To flawed mothers, being your own damn hero and taking what you deserve from the world without remorse.”

He downs the drink and she smiles again.

“I’ll drink to that.”

The Canadian claps excitedly while biting half of a piece of lemon as she calls the bartender to bring her a shot too. Amanda licks the salt from his hand and shoots the tequila before leaning down to capture the free half of the lemon hanging from his lips, bite and suck the remaining juice from it. He allows her to take it from him when she stands up straight again, swinging to the beat of a song that had just started after putting it down.

He’s licking the lips and about to say something when the guy with blue eyes joins them stealing his attention completely.

“Finally, you’re back!”

“Yeah, T. Not like I have much of a choice…” he mutters while signaling for a drink, sitting at the stool and turning to her with a charming smile. “Glad to see he didn’t bother you to death, sweetheart.”

“Oh, he behaved himself.”

“My dick ain’t out yet, is it?” the Canadian called T barks back at the other.

“That would be a first.”

“Fuck you M.”

All he gets as a reaction from M is a vague wave of dismissal because his focus hasn't shifted from Amanda for a moment. He steps closer to her. Not so much that their bodies are touching, but enough to make her turn to face him and only him like there was nothing and nobody else for miles. There’s so much confidence in his posture she needs to fight the urge to lean into his chest, nuzzle on the crook of his neck to be fucking held by him. 

She sucks a breath in when he reaches to adjust a lock of her hair, waking her up from the daydream she was having about the two of them with the heart hammering her chest.

“You were incredible earlier, I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

“Thank you! I’m here every day so…”

“It must be hard, huh?” she crooks the head on a silent question and he shrugs, blue eyes leaving hers to scan her body, lingering on the glossy lips on the way back to hers. “You got a beautiful body, beautiful legs, beautiful face, all these guys in love with you. Only you got a look in your eye like you haven’t be-”

“Alright! I’m not high enough to hear this cringe bullshit.” A stool scratches the floor loudly and she turns around to see the Canadian guy on his feet, fingers inside the small pocket looking for something that, she would guess by how jittery he was, could only be drugs. He nods towards the other before finishing a drink. “Good luck with him.”

Ten minutes later and she finds out T was absolutely right because she was already used to M smell, addicted to the warmth of his hands, obsessed with having his attention on her and good God, she would need all the luck she could get to forget about the things he whispered with those blue eyes on her. Or maybe her luck is all spent on the fact he’s rolling in cash and keeps paying lap dance after lap dance on the private room so she gets to grind on him for hours until they’re pretty much dry humping and she’s sweaty, panting and wet. Amanda wasn’t really the type to accept extras and knows she should be professional and not enjoy it  _ that _ much, but that man had a type of power she couldn’t explain.

She has the back to him and is rolling the hips against the hard line of his cock inside the jeans when M’s hand slides up her spine to grab a handful of her hair, bringing her upper body backward towards his chest.

“Fuck, I-” his lips connect to her earlobe and he groans at how she keeps grinding while guiding his hand to her breast. “I didn’t even ask your name.”

“How would you like to call me, babe?”

He hovers the parted lips on Amanda’s neck slowly and squeezes her boob, smiling at the needy whine that escapes her.

“Mine. I would like to call you mine.”

For the next two weeks she calls him Michael and he goes from calling her Krystal to Mandy on the almost daily calls that at first, Amanda tries to keep in secret. Partly because it's nice having something she doesn’t have to share for once and partly because her mother overhears part of a conversation when she picks up the phone at the backstage instead of doing her rounds and scolds her, tells whoever he’s if distracts her from work so it’s not good. One day, however, Madam pulled her to the side during a pause in between VIP rooms.

“You have any idea who he’s?” She looks around to check if there’s anyone listening. “He has quite a name to himself all across the entire Midwest.”

Amanda chuckles, takes a small plume from Poppy costume from the top of her noodles to swirl some of the pasta on her fork. She remembers the fisherman tales from Harris, the biggest gossip old fucker in Linton, always exaggerating the facts to gain some minutes of fame on bars.

“Doing what, stealing pens from gas stations? It’s the kind of stuff Harris finds scandalous nowadays.”

“I’m talking about banks! Big shit.”

“Mom, I’m sure that…”

“My source is reliable. Hank’s brother, Moses, worked with them before.” she widened the hazel eyes, green eyeshadow smudged from sweat and crooked eyeliner. “You hit the jackpot.”

She still doubts it. That’s until Michael shows up in town by himself, with a velvet box where she finds a real diamond necklace that takes her breath away and when she comes out of the shower of his motel room later that night, she sees him laughing at the news about the last robbery on a jewelry store in Salt Lake City and stop doubting.

Amanda doesn’t go home for another two weeks. He takes her to Liberty City and she’s amazed by her first time at a big city and they spent all morning exploring and all night fucking like animals.

She learns he is an ass man, likes to take control and still got the stamina from his quarterback days. The cocaine helps, of course, and if outside it’s clear, inside there’s enough snow for both of them. She learns about his life too and notices how despite the danger of trusting someone new giving his lifestyle, Michael still chooses to trust her with professional life information rather than the personal or domestic part of him.

Michael talks about the boy genius Lester. Describes his natural skills with technology and how his well thought detailed plans are half of the reason why the jobs have been working so fine the last years, mentions how much it bothers him seeing Lester condition getting worse with time, how he and a friend have invested most of their last payment buying him the most modern wheelchair they could find and the surprised face the boy had made. He talks about the risks and thrills of jobs like a kid talking about their favorite movie, shiny eyes full of passion, makes it sound like the whole thing is barely even real.

Amanda asks about the other, the Canadian guy. He flashes an easy smile to a set of birthmarks on her back he had been tracing with his fingertips before clicking the tongue on the roof of his mouth.

Trevor. The craziest fucking guy he ever met. Amanda notices too, how once he begins telling stories about some of the crazy shit Trevor ever pulled in all the years they’ve been running together, he doesn’t stop. She notices that when Michael starts he’s frowning and his muscles tense up, but five minutes later he’s laughing, looking straight ahead and passing her to the empty armchair sitting at the corner. By the end, he sighs and says he’s his best friend. Then he pulls her closer once more, kisses her softly, fucks her slowly and whispers  _ “I love you” _ for the first time.

It’s easy, so easy for Amanda to fall. Not even two months since they met and she can already picture him in every teenager fantasy she has ever had, watch him fit almost perfectly on the main part of all of them – the prince charming saving her from the boredom of her dungeon, the school jock in a varsity jacket, the rebel offering her to come along on a world of adventures. Michael makes everything look like a Vinewood movie and it was so easy for her to believe he would be her happy ending she simply accepts it. 

Then, after a phone call with someone she doesn’t figure who is it from where she’s standing on the other side of the bathroom, Michael says he needs to go deal with an emergency. He leaves as hastily as she has ever seen someone do it, but leaves her with a promise to come back and so much cash that she doesn’t know what to do with it. So she invested it. Get a boob job and recover from home watching all available episodes of Baywatch.

Michael has a surprise when he visits her at the strip club for one of her performance nights. When she steps into the stage to dance to Cherry Pie in a cheerleader costume and meet his eyes, his pupils are blown out of cocaine and lust. They don’t make it to the motel mattress. He fucks her up against the wall in the back of the club, she gives him head on the car and he's ready to go again when they trip and stumble on the carpet of the room, doing it on the floor.

The next day, he leaves again and it’s hard for Amanda to watch him drive off. It gets harder every time. Still, she focuses on work and it’s good for a while until, well, until it isn’t.

First, there’s good news, a mall and new residential homes were attracting families and married men was what half of the clientele was all about. Then comes the bad news, someone opens a new strip club at the skirt of the town and half of the girls leave. Madam tries to stay strong but can’t, spends most of the time with a bottle in her hands to mix with any sort of pill she can find. Angel does her best to spread propaganda and try to hire new girls only to find out how managing an establishment like that is hard, how she doesn't even have any guidance to follow.

So they dance less, strip more and the extras become pretty much the main income. Some of the clients are familiar faces, some are just looking for a girlfriend experience, some just want to talk without being judged and every once in a while there is this one really hot dude that makes it bearable but other times it's just… Disgusting.

Some are so disgusting that by the second month of taking calls, Amanda literally starts puking at work. She feels miserable, has no energy or will to even eat. Maybe it’s depression like her mom's, she thinks at first and then on the possibility that one of those bastards had given her an STD somehow, but one night Angel’s home begging her to eat some soup and look at her like she had seen a ghost.

“When was your last period?”

It feels like there was an elevator on her chest and the cords of it were just cut causing the whole box to crash on the floor of her stomach. For days she's scared, emotional, confused and when she goes to her mother for advice, all the woman does is stare at her with glossy eyes.

“My darling girl,” she smiles and pats her cheek. “A woman. You’re good Amanda, taking care of your mother like this… But don’t worry about us anymore. Now you have secured a man for life and I can rest easy.”

Amanda still refuses to believe there is a life growing on her. She spends a long time staring at her naked body in the mirror, but nothing seems different. On a spur of the moment decision, she dresses up to leave, passes the pharmacy and goes straight to the hospital for a blood test. Amanda pays in cash so they test every fucking thing they possibly can, watches them take little tube after little tube of her blood and all there’s left to do is wait.

She ignores most of Michael’s calls until the results are out and when it is, she ignores him completely. The sealed envelope rests inside of her purse like an anvil she cares around wherever she goes during the week.

At the weekend, Angel meets her for lunch and despite getting upset after an argument about how Amanda needed to rip the band-aid at once to find out the truth, she talks about a guy asking for her over the club’s phone.

“For a call job?” Angel hums in affirmation and blows steam from the border of the cup she’s holding in both hands. “In Strasburg?”

“Yes, he even said your name.”

Taking a sip from her own tea, Amanda's mind goes to Michael. After Angel takes a bite from her pastry and tucks a lock of the short hair behind the ear decides it’s better to find out more.

“How did he sound like?”

“I don’t know… Uhm, sexy but also kind of high? Canadian…” their eyes meet and Angel crooks her head, covers the lips to speak again even if she still had a mouth full. “Why? I thought you were not taking calls anymore.”

“I’m not, it’s just…”

Amanda doesn’t know for sure why, but she stops the car at the motel that’s on the address she got from Angel on the same night. She drops the keys inside the purse and feels the envelope there just like she had left when took it from the mailbox like an annoying reminder. She knocks on room 114 and waits only to get no response. The woman knocks again and keeps knocking until she can hear muffled curses.

Trevor opens the door at once wearing small shorts and a tank top despite the cold weather. His shaggy hair is damp from what she guesses was the shower since there was no sign of rain clouds outside. With a big hand gesture, he invites her inside by stepping aside.

“ _ Amanda _ .”

The door closes behind her. She drops the purse near the foot of the bed, turns around to stop checking the mostly untouched room for any signs of Michael’s stuff and focus on him.

“ _ Trevor _ .”

“You actually showed up…” he walks to the minibar and grabs a cold beer. “Does Mikey know you still take calls?”

“Please, Trevor… I knew it was you.”

“So you accepted it because it was me?”

She snorts, takes off the coat and throws it at the chair to cross the arms in front of the chest. “It’s he around too?”

“No, just moi.”

The way he’s staring at her makes her feel uneasy. It’s like he’s trying to read her, sneak his way inside her brain to find what’s inside. Feels like he’s testing her and makes her skin tingle. She tells herself that she hates the feeling of it.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are  _ you _ doing here?” he echoes with a finger pointing at her, steps closer on a long and casual stride. Trevor holds the bottle out to her. “I got curious, found this matchbox with your club number on it. He has been disappearing for weeks, was he with you?”

“What do you think?” she opens the beer at the table corner, takes a sip. “You should know… He’s your brother, isn’t he?”

Trevor laughs with no humor while grabbing a bottle to himself. He walks to the end of the bed and sits on the mattress taking a big gulp.

“Yeah, we’re ‘ _ brothers’ _ alright.”

With the index and middle finger of both hands, he draws big quotation marks in the air. So her suspicions were true after all. Okay.

“For how long?”

Amanda sits on the bed next to him and nurses her beer, elbows on the knees and face towards him. Trevor’s staring at some blank point ahead with a defeated face she had never pictured on him. When he talks it’s against the mouth of the bottle and his voice is soft.

“Long enough to be too late for me.”

She nods and thinks about the meaning of it for a while, wonders where the fuck had she got herself in the middle of, takes another sip. They share the silence until she speaks again.

“You know him for a long time so tell me, what the fuck is up with all those movie lines?”

Both of them laugh, Trevor’s head hangs behind in delight and he’s clearly glad to finally have found someone who agreed with him about the subject.

“Seriously, we were at the market getting some hamburger to cook and he just started saying some shit and I was like…  _ What? _ ” Amanda chuckles, raise the shoulders and drop them. “It was something about being dangerous for me being standing at the frozen food section b-”

“-ction because you could melt all this stuff… Yeah. It’s from this movie called My Blue Heaven.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you’re one of those guys too.”

“Do I look like one of those guys? No. I’m a victim, alright? He forces me to watch these shit with him.” Trevor takes another big sip, turns to her with a hum. “Did he tell you about Solomon Richards yet?”

“No. Who’s this?”

“His favorite movie producer and the old man of his wet dreams. If you really want to piss him off, all you have to do is say is Rum Runner is trash and Eddie Olson a sick pervert. He gets so mad it makes him all flushed.”

“He’s so silly…” she smiles at the memories of their times together. “With that neck roll thing and those puppy dog eyes…”

“And those stupid cigarettes, the excited  _ ‘fucking A’s’ _ …”

“…the noises he makes when you give him that tacky dirty talk he likes to hear…”

Trevor hits the hand against the mattress while laughing in agreement, looking to the ceiling. “Oh Mikey, you’re so big I don’t think I can take it…”

“…yesyesyes, nobody ever fucked me like this before…” She recites too, rolling her eyes.

“…go on and cream all over my face…”

Amanda covers the mouth to keep from spitting beer everywhere and is free to laugh loudly with Trevor after wiping the chin. She slaps him in the shoulder and blinks the tears away.

“It’s so bad. Oh my God, so bad!”

“Fuck Michael.”

“Fuck Michael” she echoes and clicks their beers, but doesn't drink it. Her eyes get stuck on a small scar on Trevor's chest which she covers with the pad of the index finger. “Fuck him for making others feel like he’s the only one who can make them happy and good in this world. He’s not… Is he?”

‘ _ He’s not’ _ she says to herself,  _ ‘he can’t be’ _ .

Amanda knocks her beer off and throws the nearly empty bottle Trevor had been holding on the floor to make room, straddles his lap on a swift move. While she pulls her shirt off, Trevor stares at her with less bitterness than before, as if he was also looking for answers himself. When his eyes drop to her chest, he grins full of mischief.

“Oh, hello… Nice new pair over here, looking really good.”

“I know right? They taste even better.”

They laugh again and she digs the fingers on the sides of his head, caresses his scalp until the back of it where she closes a fist on the locks to tug as an incentive. Trevor leans closer to kiss her breasts, mouths and flick the tongue over the nipple through the fabric of her bra with eyes still fixed on hers. Dark and dangerous eyes like a cliff that pulls you in, eyes that scares and fascinate you at the same time.

Things escalate quickly like a spark near a puddle of gas and she learns Trevor is completely shameless, much less selfish than most of the guys she had ever been with and has much more stamina and strength you’d give him credit for by just looking. After the fourth orgasm, she can’t even remember for how long she had been riding his face like that and when her legs start cramping he let her lay on her back to keep going, agile tongue and fingers curling inside of her until she’s arching out of the mattress and being ridiculously loud. She’s not even having to fake it, it just feels that good, the type of orgasm that knocks the air out of her, makes the entire body shake and the eyes roll back.

When she flips him to be on top he doesn’t protest. Trevor licks the wet lips, occupies himself by sliding the hands on her body to feel the goosebumps he caused and squeezes her boobs to hear her hum in approval again. Amanda takes her time to figure out how he likes to be jerked off before taking him in and they share a dragged moan when she starts rocking easily from how slick she already was.

She’s so caught on the amazing sight of his tensed muscles underneath her hands and the veins on his arms that she almost misses it when Trevor taps her tights as warming. Amanda let him slip out of her to lazily rub herself across his length, his hard grip on her hips guiding the movements until she climaxed again with a whimper. He manages to flip their positions again to kneel over her and she wraps the hand around the tip of his cock, twists the wrist a few times and he’s cumming over her breast with a husky moan that makes her smile.

Amanda cleans herself with the sheets and they lay side by side looking at the ceiling until both of their breathing are back to normal. When everything is quiet in the room he kicks the legs off the bed and rests the elbows on the knees. She just watches him and now the sex dopamine rush is over, realization hits hard making her throat feel tight.

“We’re fucked, aren’t we?”

He nods and her eyes start to burn.

She’s in love with Michael and not just platonic in love with him. Amanda’s so in love with Michael that not even hours of awesome sex and some of the most intense orgasms she ever had makes her question that. She’s so in love she actually hopes of a good life and future, she can actually see it happening. Amanda’s so in love all she wants to do at that very moment is to run to him and be with him until God tears them apart. The problem is that, on the other side of the bed, she knows now more than ever, that Trevor feels the same way.

It enrages her and just like that, at the room 114 of a hotel bed in Strasburg, their alliance ends and whatever prospect of a great friendship there could be between them dies.

“Look, we can just go away.” Trevor passes the fingers through the hair and nods to the wall. “I can make sure he never comes back around here again and you’ll be okay, it’s not too late for you.”

“It is…”

It’s too late. It’s too late for jumping out of the raft and she’s quick to realize there’s no space for the three of them on it. She knows that with their years of friendship, deep knowledge of Michael’s personality and with all that great sex, Trevor is a real threat. A real threat to which she doesn’t have any advantages over to win. Except maybe-

“I said,” Trevor repeated louder and Amanda noticed she hadn't been listening to him. “What do you mean?”

He’s standing now, back on his dumb shorts and finally facing her again. She follows his eyes to her hands that, at some point, had moved to rest over her lower belly without her even noticing. Trevor's jaw clenches so hard that Amanda scoots away. Her eyes go to the purse, but before she can reach out to grab it, he already has it in his hands.

“Trevor…”

“What do we have here, huh?”

She stops trying to keep him from throwing most of her shit on the floor and starts to dress in hopes she can leave the motel room before he finds the envelope. Trevor beats her to it again. The purse falls with a thud. “Hey, asshole, that doesn’t belong to you!”

He doesn’t need to do much to free himself from her as she tries to take the thing back. Trevor bites the edge of the envelope to rip it open while stepping over the bed and walking across to the other side to create a good distance between them and switching the sides.

“Amanda Carlson, yaddayaddayadda…”

With no more place to run, Amanda sits down on the same spot of the bed he was ten minutes or so ago and rests the forehead against her palm of the hand with eyes closed, trying to organize the thoughts. For a moment there’s just the sound of pages being turned and the thumps of her heart. She can’t look, he’s about to rip off the band-aid and she can’t even look.

“You’re pregnant.” the woman opens her eyes, feels something blossoming in the middle of her chest. It's a nice moment she doesn't have time to enjoy because something is thrown against the TV making the glass explode like fireworks and she jumps in place. “You’re fucking  _ pregnant _ !”

Trevor ruffles the pages again to read something.

“18k… That’s… So 6-8 weeks. Are you fucking kidd- You already knew?”

“No, Trevor!” she turns to look at him, sees the way he paces around and rubs the face. “The envelope was sealed, wasn’t it?”

“Is it Michael’s?”

“Of course it’s!”

“How would you know?”

“Because I use protection.”

“Oh, except with me you didn’t…” he points the finger at her, squints and crooks the head. “Was that your plan all along? Give me some STD or better yet, make sure if this test here was negative you had a backup plan with my seeds?”

“No! I would never… You’re out of your mind. That was not it. Whatever happened between us was clearly a mistake that will never leave this room or be repeated.”

Trevor looks at her for a long time. Time enough for her to get chills, try to remember exit routes or anything near that she could use as a weapon. Time enough for her to remember all the things Michael said about him and what he was capable of doing on a rampage.

“I could kill you right now…”

“Trevor… Please.”

On a quick movement, he’s already on her, hands around her neck making a scream die on her throat. His eyes are hazy like he was barely there but slipping to a berserk trance of violence.

“…Nobody would know.”

She knees him in the groin making him grunt in pain and hit her head against the wall with a thud. It works just enough to ease the hold he has on her neck and pulling his wrists down with both hands, Amanda sucks in some breath noisily.

“You’re right. You’re right, but you know what, Trevor? You won’t do shit because this child is not just mine.” she puts a hand over the belly again and watches his eyes follow the movement before going back to hers. “It’s Michael’s. So you’re going to let me go. Now.”

And to her surprise, Trevor does let her go. She coughs and tries to normalize the breathing while sliding off his hands and away from the wall. Taking nothing more than the absolutely necessary to shove it back on the purse alongside the results, Amanda hurries to the door like a hurricane.

“What are you going to do?”

She turns around to see him standing there. The face once contorted with wraith is now looking painfully confused and somewhat scared. Amanda opens the door, steps outside and sighs.  _ ‘Be your own hero,’  _ she repeats in the head the words Trevor said once,  _ ‘take what you deserve with no remorse.’. _

“I guess... I guess I’m going to be a mom.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> random funny fact, I gave Carlson as a last name for Amanda after realizing "Tracey" is not only similar to "Trevor" but also starts with "TR" (from TRevor), ends with "EY" (like mikEY) but has "AC" in the middle. it made me laugh when I noticed so I wanted to play with the initials so it would fit too.


	9. Trevor, 2002

“Wow now… Are you trying to compensate for something, Townley?”

Trevor wipes the sweat from the forehead with the back of the hand and takes a sip from the cold beer while looking at the huge plastic pool filled to the brim at the backyard of his best friend’s house. Michael steals the bottle from him to finish it up in one big gulp, licks the bottom lip. 

“You know pretty well that I’m not.”

He smirks in that way that makes Trevor feel fucking goosebumps everywhere.

“Mikey, Mikey, Mikey…”

“Fuck off.”

Michael chuckles, bumps the shoulder against his chest, handles back the empty bottle and waves to the neighborhood who’s sitting on the steps of his trailer house. Everyone and their mothers are out today since the sun decided to show up to finally bless North Yankton with some warmth. It’s the most vitamin D people will get from the burning star all year so they might as well make the most out of it with full barbecues, plastic pools, cold beverages and music blasting.

Trevor smiles and waves to the old guy too, leans in closer to the other man but only slightly and whispers. “Think about the favor we’d be doing to the grandpa by putting on a show. It’s probably the most action he has seen since dinosaurs were extinct.”

“Yeah, T… I would love to cause Mr. Williams a heart attack and get one more second-degree murder charge on my record.” Michael checks the stability of the table they had bought it outside. “Go and pick up the chairs.”

Trevor rolls the eyes at the sarcasm, reaches for his chest and smiles watching him flinch away to escape the pinch.

“Your fucking tits look great today.”

He made sure to speak louder than needed just to piss him off, hearing those grumpy muffled complaints was always worth it. Amanda’s carefully applying sunscreen on Jimmy like he couldn’t do it himself while the boy's eyes are fixed on the Game Boy Colors when enters to grab the chairs, leaving them where Michael points out before grabbing another cold beer. To his surprise, instead of jumping on the pool with a high pitch squeal, Tracey’s leaning on the wall. Despite the blank expression on her face while looking at it, the girl smiles when he walks towards her.

“Hey uncle T, do you like my mustache?” She points at the facial hair growing on her face and reminds him of a preteen version of himself. “Cool, eh?”

“Are you going to grow one like mine?”

“I would, mom says I shouldn’t because I’m a young lady now and people will make fun of me, though”

“If you punch them strong enough they won’t even be awake to try doing that.” he winks and she giggles, reaching to grab a hold of Michael who was passing by them and resting against his arm.

Trevor points to the pool. “Aren’t you going in?”

“What?” Michael watches her shaking the head and frowns. “Is this a joke?”

“Joke? No, dad. I just… Not feeling it.”

“Not feeling it? Alright...”

She looks up at him but Michael is already looking away, lips pressed on a line. His arm slips from her hold when he shifts the weight from one leg to the other.

“Dad…”

“I’ve been hearing you begging for a pool for months…”

“I’m sorry…”

“-ent all the way to the city center to find one big enough for everyone, had to literally fight a guy to keep the last one of the store, spent the entire morning filling it up and now you're saying you won’t get in because  _ you’re not feeling it _ ?”

“I can’t go inside the stupid pool, okay?!”

Tracey stands up straight, eyes as cold and sharp as her, the ones staring down at her. Michael snorts and shakes the head.

“You wanna know who’s stupid? Me. I’m the stupid one here for trying to please all of you. Your brother can’t put that fucking game down and now you suddenly can’t get in the pool.”

“I got my period! That’s why I can’t go to the pool. Are you fucking happy now, dad?”

Trevor sees Amanda looking back with anger to the curious neighbors staring and Jimmy grimacing with disgust. Michael is so caught off guard he doesn’t even scold her for swearing.

“Wh-You’re only eleven.”

“I know! It’s not fair!”

She breaks down crying and pushes him before storming inside the house. The bedroom door slamming shut can be heard by all of them. Trevor takes the plates with sandwiches from Amanda’s hands promptly and she hurries after her daughter. Ten minutes later, after helping Jimmy combine the filling of three tiny sandwiches into a big one and cleaning his chubby cheek to get rid of the evidence, Trevor sits next to grumpy Michael.

“If you’re here to say what a shitty father I’m, don’t even bother.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Mikey. You have never been the father of an 11 years old before… I mean, not that we know of.”

It makes the corner of his mouth twitch while he takes a drag from the cigarette. Trevor knocks their knees together and holds the hand open. Michael puts a bottle on it. “Feels like every time I’m getting a clue of what to do she just… Changes again. She’s growing so fast. It’s scary.”

“I know.”

“You would never make the mistakes I do with them…”

“Probably not. I would make different mistakes though.” he takes a sip from the beer, turns the face to see Michael's profile. “Look… If I had to live with them 24/7, uh boy, uncle T wouldn’t be so happy.”

“24/7 with you and I’m sure they wouldn’t be so happy either, I know I’m not.”

“You looked pre-tty happy last week, sugar tits. Really… Excited and up for it, eh?”

Michael blows smoke in his direction and bites down a piece of chicken. Trevor goes back to drinking the beer and watching the younger Townley licks the interior of yet another sandwich. Amanda gets out of the house and calls Michael for a talk away from the neighbor's view in a forced honeyed voice they all know it means arguments. He goes to check on Tracey, finds the girl on the chesterfield, faces still flushed from crying.

“Are you in pain?”

“No, mom gave me something for it.”

Being an uncle isn’t the same thing as being a father so despite Michael thinking he had all the answer when it came to his daughter, truth was that with time Trevor understood that to be able to talk to Tracey and connect to her without the pressure of hierarchy, he had to put himself in the place of a kid.

He gets it why it’s so hard for Michael to do that, he doesn’t blame him. Some childhoods are too cursed to be revived and it was hard for him too… To allow young Trevor to step from the tiny cabinet that he was so used to living in even if now the cabinet was only a place inside of him.

Sometimes it would hurt too much, especially on happy times like birthdays or on holidays like Christmas. That was too much. Young Trevor, poisoned with envy he couldn’t control, would try to bite his way out and destroy everything just to make it more familiar to him. Most of the time, Tracey gave young Trevor a form of guileless, genuine, unconditional, and loving-kindness that he never knew, but cherishes so much it doesn’t even matter how unprepared to receive it he feels. It’s so pure and warm that stings his chest. Still, young Trevor doesn’t mind because, contrary to young Michael who gave up on love too when escaped from pain, he learned a long time ago how to handle the pain if it came along with some sort of love.

There was no magic secret to it other than accepting what the other is ready to give and trust them while they do it. That’s why while he sits on the chesterfield he doesn’t try to overwhelm her with words or any sort of condescending attitude. He just makes himself available, waits until she’s ready to open up.

“It’s like I can’t stop peeing in my pants.” She shares like a secret and Trevor laughs, earning a punch in the arm despite apologizing, holding the palms up in surrender. Tracey laughs too. “Seriously, I know I’ll learn how to deal with it and all, but I hate this thing already.”

He pats her head and makes a mess of her hair. “Come on, you can still have fun and enjoy your summer.”

“How, though?”

Five minutes later they’re crouched behind the side of the Ingot watching Amanda scream at Jimmy trying to convince him to handle her the Game Boy.  _ ‘James!’ _ she calls annoyed for the third time,  _ ‘you’ll drop it on the pool and I’ll forbid you from getting another!’.  _ She finally wins, walks away to put the video game inside as the boy complains and pouts. Michael tells him to obey his mom with the eyes still focused on the newspaper.

“Do you have eyes on the target?” Trevor whispers to Tracey by his side.

“Yes. Should I take the shot?”

“Ready when you’re.”

She smiles, holds the open palm for him. “Grenade.”

He drops one of the blue balloons at her hand, watches her take the throwing stance he taught her before the thing flew over and hit the back of her father’s head to cover him in water. Michael gets up and looks around.

“ _ Now! _ ” Tracey jumps out of the hiding spot with a water gun in her hands and charges towards her victim, drenching him in the water despite his attempts to keep it from going into his eyes. “Ha! Got you, dad!”

“We’re under attack!” he tries in vain to catch her, but she’s too fast. “Jimbo, help me, get your sister.”

Jimmy gets out of the pool almost taking half of the water with him and runs to the balloons, attacking and distracting her. Trevor throws another water gun to Michael and he catches it in the air in familiar synchronicity.

“Now we’re talking… You better be run and hide, Tracey.” Michael calls out and she laughs from somewhere behind the house. He smiles thankful at Trevor and squeezes the trigger to hit him in the face with a water jet, does it again when Trevor complains. "Come on, it's not like you're not used to it..."

Trevor wraps an arm around his shoulder to rest his head against his for a second in between laughs, presses a ghost of a kiss on his ear before smashing a balloon on it and pushing him away. He shakes the head like a dog and wipes the eyes. 

“I would reply to that, but looks like you’re about to have your ass kicked.”

“Fuckin’ A,” he grunts in forged annoyance without breaking their eye contact. “Where?”

“Your 6 in 5, 4, 3…”

Trevor jumps away to save himself and Michael dunks down, turns around to splash the girl in the face before she could pull the trigger on him. She yelps and loses the water gun to her brother while trying to take the hair off her face. They run around the house and play for a while until Amanda steps outside again to see the mess-making things get a bit tense. The woman had always been really clear about not liking any sort of games that involved violence or toys who resembled guns and what they have been currently doing broke the two guides so if at first she had smiled fondly at the scene of her family and Trevor having fun instead of arguing, now she just stared blankly ahead.

“Michael?”

He stops on his step and closes his eyes for a second, turns around to face her. “Yes, darling?”

“Can we talk about th-”

She never gets to finish the sentence. A balloon leaves Trevor’s hand to cut the air and hit her straight on the face with great precision. Tracey sucking the breath in is the only noise for a moment and then Jimmy burst into a loud guffaw. Michael has to look down to hide the face and Tracey's eyes go from one to another trying to do the same.

“I’m sorry Amanda, what?” Trevor juggles another balloon in between the hands with a smirk on his face. “We didn’t hear you over the sound of the plastic colliding with your forehead.”

He doesn’t flinch despite the hard steps she takes on the grass until she’s facing him. Jimmy’s still laughing so hard he might choke any time now.

“You…”

“Me?”

She looked furious and she looked good. Despite all the years, two kids later, there she is and it’s so good that combined with the always so alluring view of Michael handling a gun, he might really pop a boner. He basks on her fury, loves how much she’s controlling herself not to yell every single curse word she knows to his face. Amanda pokes him in the chest and frowns. He pushes her button just a bit more.

“Don’t act like it’s the first time I make you this wet…”

Is just a whisper, but it does the trick. She groans like a mad animal and shoves Trevor away with all her strength making him fall inside the pool. Of course, he takes her with him and that only makes her even angrier. The excitement of the kids must bring her back to herself because when he blindly splashes another balloon on her face, Jimmy is running laps around the pool screaming  _ ‘mom’s playing too, mom’s playing!’ _ and her hands stop holding him down to pull him up.

“Drowned? Really?” he gasps, shakes the hair of the eyes. “You know I can hold my breath down th-”

She pushes him again and this time Michael has to stop helping Tracey fix her water gun in between asking Jimmy  _ for the love of God _ to stop throwing balloons on her for the fifth time and jump in the pool to wrap the arms around Amanda’s waist, pulling her away to separate them discreetly.

“Alright babe, let’s play nice with each other now.”

Her eyes are still hoping to burn holes on Trevor while he laughs from the opposite corner. She is about to say something when the kids pop from each side and scream  _ 'now!'  _ so the water jets hit her in the face from both of their toy guns. Amanda screams in surprise, pulls Jimmy in as the boy laughs overjoyed.

Trevor knows that by the end of the night the toys will be at the bottom of the trash can so Jimmy will pout, Tracey will ask what’s so bad about it and their parents will probably argue again, but right now the girl is laughing with her dad’s despite everything and that’s what matters the most.


	10. Tracey, 2003

Trevor holds the heart-shaped mirror higher to check the back part of his head. “It’s looking good.”

“Thanks!” Tracey carefully separates another lock of his hair, divides it in three with the fingers and twists them into another thin braid. “I practiced a bit on mom but her hair is too flat.”

“Trevor's hair is just the same, the difference is that he never washes it.” 

“Excuse me?” he puts down the mirror to narrow his eyes at Michael who keeps opening and closing the cabinets looking for something with the back to them.

“Thinking about it, you better make the most of it while you can Tracey because a couple of years more and it’ll probably be all gone.”

“Oh, gone, yeah… Gone like all your fucking clothes, right? I can see the fabric hugging your Molson muscle from here, porkchop, all your lumps. I mean  _ all _ of them. I think it’s time to buy some new ones.” Trevor holds the mirror up again and Tracey sees Michael checking himself to see if it was true, grimaces when he finds it’s not a complete lie. He dries the hand on a dishcloth, shrugs as if he didn’t care. “You’re just jealous because I’ll have a new hairstyle and you have been stuck on the same one since you were 18.”

“I could braid your hair next, dad! Sarah Fae taught me these ones we-”

“No. I’m good.” Michael closes the cupboard and fills the pan with water. “Your mom told you where she put the tomato sauce before she left for the appointment?”

Tracey moves along to another braid, sighs before answering him with an emotionless voice. “Cabinet near the window, dad.”

He hums and goes back to taking care of lunch. Tracey scoots over to the side to continue her work on the remaining loose hair while thinking about her day at school. At first, she thinks it’s better not to bring it up because her father never really listened or explained anything without arguing in hopes you’ll just drop the question eventually, but then again, if uncle T was there it would be probably easier to barrier. It always was easier with uncle T around.

“What’s a stripper?”

Michael hits the spoon on the border of the can loudly. “A wh-?”

“A stripper.”

Like expected, Michael keeps focused on his task, dropping the meatballs on the sauce without any other word, waiting until the question gets lost in the air and vanishes by itself. Trevor adjusts himself on the floor to get more comfortable and look at her from the blacked-out TV screen. 

“Strippers are entertainers. They perform shows and dance.”

“And take off their clothes,” she adds while looking back to watch his muddy, distorted reflex make a thinking face.

“Yeah, they don’t wear many clothes. In a weather like what we have here, how uncomfortable would it be dancing on a winter coat, can you imagine?”

“I guess… Is it a bad thing? Being a stripper, I mean?”

“Yes,” Michael replies firmly from the other side.

“No, it isn’t.” the locks of hair escape from her hands when Trevor turns the head to look at him. “It’s a job for adults, but a job like any other. There are people who support their families, pay their bills and even medical treatments, all thanks to stripping.”

She hears him call her dad a hypocrite under the breath, Michael rolls his eyes. There’s silence between them until the girl speaks up again, redoing a messy braid.

“Was mom a stripper?” she asks carefully in a soft voice.

“Wha-Who said that?”

Michael fully drops the empty can on the sink, attention fully on her while the water bubbles in the stove behind him. Trevor’s eyes look at her too, but this time through the hand mirror.

“Curtis. He said he heard his uncle telling all about it to his dad at the parking lot after the last PTA meeting. He works in Palomino… Something, I don't remember, but it’s visiting.” she frowns and lifts the eyes to stare at Michael. “Was she or not?”

“Don’t worry about that.” he shifts uncomfortably.

“But dad…”

“All you have to worry about is pointing me to Curtis’s dad drive, okay?” he points the finger to Trevor. “And don’t even look at him for help because he’s staying  _ out _ of it for once.”

She groans and looks at him anyway when her father goes back to finishing up the pasta and the last braid is done. It takes a moment, some narrowing of her eyelids, some head crooking, but then Trevor turns around to look at her straight in the eyes.

“I have a better question… Would it matter if she was?”

Michael slams the cabinet door, runs his fingers through his hair. “Fuckin’ A, Trevor! Are you incapable of listening?”

“Shut up, fat turd! Let me t-”

"This is not of yo-"

The girl hums to muffle their voices as they argue, takes her time to think about it. She breaths in to see how she feels and sighs certain of her answer. “No.”

“Good, because it shouldn’t.” Trevor pokes her in the nose before getting up and the way the braids swing around makes her giggle. “Now, how do I look?”

“Silly.” Michael throws the tablecloth at him with a smile despite the fact that not only two minutes ago they were in an argument. "You look silly."

“You look great, uncle T. Thanks for letting me do it.”

“Not a problemo, buttercup, I’m at your service and rest assured,” he swayed the tablecloth open over the dinner table to set it up. “I’ll keep them for as long as I can.”

She can hear her dad mumble a  _ ‘God help us’ _ from the bathroom while washing the hands to eat.

A week later, Tracey is not really surprised to see that Trevor kept his promise. After all, he always does. He joins her and Michael at the center of the gymnasium while Amanda’s helping Jimmy set up all his stuff for his big Science Fair day as if by magic as if he had been there the entire time. Her father greets with something between a sigh and a grunt.

“Where were you?”

“Why? You missed me?” he wiggles the eyebrows, adjusts the cap he’s wearing and steps super closer to Michael. 

He snorts, uses the forearm to force him to take a step back again. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to have you by yourself on a 5th-grade science fair.” 

“Funny you said that, I actually was seeing the stand over there…” he points somewhere behind him with the thumb and she leans forward to see it despite her dad's disinterest. “The banner said  _ ‘crystal names’ _ , it got me really excited for a while.”

“That just proves my point, T.”

Trevor rocks on the ball of his feet, hands tucked on the pockets and shrugs. Michael shakes the head, looks around like he’s a little out of place. Tracey wouldn’t be surprised by that either, he wasn’t mom, he didn’t have a clue who any of those people were. She grabs him by the hand to help the poor man out.

“The people from that side are from Jimmy’s class, we should start over there.”

He allows her to lead and follows from stand to stand. They see a girl who used licorice sticks, toothpicks and four different colored marshmallows to build an edible strand of DNA – Michael has to hold Trevor’s hand to keep it from grabbing some from the table. Then, they move to a duo whose only thing on top of the table is a plate with food items sealed in a plastic bag – Trevor asks what the three of them are secretly thinking to themselves when he says  _ ‘what the fuck is this’ _ loud enough to make other parents stare and Michael pulls them along to keep going. The next one is from a boy who mixes something with soap, yeast and warm water inside of a bottle. The white foam comes out the ring in spurts and overflows sliding to the table on a big mess.

Tracey looks behind to see Michael with eyes closed, covering the mouth with a hand and Trevor literally wiping tears from the eyes, both trying to stop laughing with no success.

“T,  _ shut up _ .”

“I-I can’t even s-speak.”

“What’s so funny?” Tracey crossed the arms in front of her chest feeling left out of the joke. “I don’t get it.”

“Let’s go, I think I see your mom.”

She grunts annoyed, but listens to her father and leans against Amanda’s side when she’s close enough. They watch Jimmy's presentation about Gummy Bear Osmosis, the ability of water to be absorbed by seeping through a semipermeable membrane and all that. Tracey thinks it’s okay and all but has no doubts her Paper Rocket Flight Test in two weeks is going to be even cooler and can’t wait to see how happy uncle T will be to find out she learned all those facts about planes by herself.

The hand Amanda’s running to her hair leaves her head to touch Michael’s shoulder and Tracey looks up to see both looking around in confusion. She has to step aside so a random kid doesn’t crush her feet.

“-hat’s why that one is almost completely dissolved, uhm, because the vinegar, a dilute solution of acetic acid, almost completely dissolved…” he dries the palms of the hands-on the front of his shirt and gulps. “It. That’s all I have. Thanks.”

Trevor starts clapping and cheering, making some others join him. The people start spreading out again slowly and Amanda beelines towards Jimmy to congratulate the boy for the presentation.

“You did amazing, bub, I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks, mom,” he pouts as she kisses his fat cheek repeatedly. “Can I eat them now?”

“No! The instructions said it has bacteria.”

The woman rubs the palm of her hand against the cheek she had just kissed to take off the lipstick smudge until she hears someone Tracey recognize as one of Jimmy’s teachers calling her. Amanda grabs Michael by the hand and he ruffles their son’s hair before following her, introducing himself to the older woman with a smile. For the lack of other adults around, both of the kids look at Trevor for permission and he shrugs. Tracey grabs the tap water gummy bears, Jimmy the milk ones and Trevor mix both salty and sugar water. The girl sees a curly-haired boy in the crowd and grunts, turns around in hope he won’t recognize her. Uncle T pokes her shoulder with a frown.

"What 's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she says casually.

“Curfis.” Jimmy tries to say, swallows the gummy and tries again. “Curtis.”

“James!” she snarls and wishes she was at the other side of the table to kick him. “You idiot!”

“What? I’m giving you time to prepare yourself. He’s coming.”

She rolls the eyes, adjusts the headband while taking a deep breath.

“Hey, Trace!”

“So..." the man who came alongside a shy looking Curtis hooks one of the thumbs on the belt hoop and nods. "This is the famous Trace you kept talking about?”

“It’s Tracey,  _ sir _ .”

He chuckles before whistling. “Feisty like her mother!”

“Excuse me, but who the  _ fuck _ are you again?”

Trevor steps in front of him and stands taller than Tracey had ever seen him, grabs the other man's hand on a handshake so firm that she can see his muscles flexing.

“I’m Ralph Barnes, Curtis' uncle. You?”

“I’m a friend of the family.”

“Are you?” the man let go of his hand, looked up and down with a toothy grin. “Maybe I should check with the school personnel, gotta keep the kids safe, you what I mean?”

Uncle T steps so close to the man that makes him look up to keep the eyes connected and Tracey suddenly feels Jimmy’s hand on hers as the boy hurries to stand near. Michael gently pushes Curtis to the side when he comes back to them and puts a hand on Trevor’s shoulder.

“Hey, is everything good here?”

“Everything’s great!” Trevor wraps an arm around Barnes and taps him on the chest with the free hand. “Just having a talk with Ralph here, Curtis uncle.”

Michael nods and flexes his fingers, looks around. He’s about to say something when Amanda joins them. Something makes Ralph laugh.

“It really is you, huh? What was it, uhm, something silly with K…”

Tracey sees her mom widen her eyes and meets her dad’s before he stands in between them. Michael says something to Ralph under his breath and when Trevor lets him go with a shove, it's so strong it makes the man stumble and almost fall. When Ralph leaves and takes Curtis with him the three adults look at each other. 

“Fuckin’ A.”

“Can we leave this shit hole now or?”

“No," Amanda crouches and undoes Jimmy’s shoe just to tie them again, breathing ragged. "I’m one of the judges and we need to wait for the results.”

“Great…” Trevor looks around and Michael sighs.

“Can’t you just vote and I don’t know, they can just tell you Jimmy won or something?”

“No, Michael, unless you want me to su-”

“Wow,” Trevor held the palms up. “Let’s calm down. It should take another, what? Half-hour? How many different shitty experiences can it be?”

Forty minutes had passed and Tracey was bored. She and Jimmy had already played all the games they could invent to make time go faster and now just couldn’t stand sitting down especially after Amanda said they weren’t allowed to go more than twenty feet from her. It was worse now that both dad and Trevor had disappeared into the crowd.

“I’m going to look for them.”

“But mom said…”

“I know what mom said! I just can’t stay here anymore!”

“Fine, go. I’ll tell her you’re taking a shit, kissing a boy or something.”

“Uhg, whatever Jimbo, just be convincing.”

When one of the volcanoes from another kid doesn’t stop exploding and the mom starts screaming for help, Amanda hurries to assist what creates the perfect opportunity for her to escape. Tracey’s passing the sportsmanship trophy wall when somebody calls her.

“Tracey, wait!” Curtis jogs until he’s next to her and smiles, cheeks flushed from running. “I just wanted to apologize for earlier… My uncle, uhm, he’s kinda creepy. And a liar! I-I totally didn’t, you know… Kept talking about you the other day after you know, we almost…”

He gestures between them and she bites down a smile.

“Kiss.”

“Yeah, kiss.”

“Alright. Anything else you want to say?”

“Oh… No. Just… Yeah, sorry about my weird uncle, hope he leaves us soon and… It was nice to see you.”

“Cool. Nice to see you too.”

They stand awkwardly for a moment longer before she pecks him in the cheek, spin around and run along the corridor to the parking lot leaving him behind. She sighs relieved to find it empty. If everybody was inside, nobody could see her blushing and smiling and dancing to Heaven by DJ Sammy that was only playing in her head. The sound of fabric ruffling and a branch breaking brings her back to reality mid-chorus. She hides behind a big Baller after hearing muffled voices coming from the darkest corner of the parking lot and waits. A car door opens and she looks from beneath the car, recognizing the two pairs of shoes before the voices reach her ears.

“Why does it always end like this with you, T?”

“What?”

“It didn’t have to come to this… The shit he was talking about Amanda… We should just have ignored that.”

“Oh, I agree. If we’re going to start dealing with every man in the Midwest who saw your wife shaking it there won’t be any left.” the steps move around, Tracey can see the heels of another pair of shoes being dragged and vanishing from view. “But that’s not why we did it, is it M?”

Tracey crawls to the front of the Baller to peek out of her hiding stop just in time to see her dad close the door of the car making the image of a Ralph Barnes staring blankly ahead without blinking in the backseat disappears behind it. Michael rolls the neck and looks around while holding the rib.

“We? You did it! It’s my kid’s school shit and instead of being there, I have to clean after you.”

“You’re a fucking joke, ain’t ya? I’m the one doing the cleaning!” Trevor closes the door from the other side and points the finger at him from across the roof. “He recognized you! That’s why we’re doing this. Because  _ you _ didn’t listen to me in Red County and let him walk out of fucking the bank!”

“Fuck off… Don’t act as if y-”

“-cause you love to be a cheesy turd and repeat lines of stupid movies or recite some fucking poetry like a soft pussy instead of- Fuck, you’re bleeding. Just get in.”

Tracey sees her dad tilt the head up to keep the blood from running down the nose and hears him cursing before getting in the car to leave.

She goes back inside and doesn’t talk about it to her mother or her brother. When Amanda asks where she was, Tracey says she went to the bathroom after running into someone from her class and by the small nod Jimmy gives her it matches his story enough. When Amanda asks about her dad, Tracey shrugs and she flips her phone open to call him.

Almost one hour later and Jimmy’s curled up into a ball on the stands almost sleeping but still complaining about not having his Game Boy to console him for losing the science competition. Tracey’s about to start a fight with him just to keep busy when Amanda tells them she needs to stay to help the team of parents to clean, they should go and meet their dad at the entrance. She asks if they could do that and the girl rolls her eyes because she’s not stupid. That just makes Amanda force her to hold her brother’s hand until the car as punishment for being a smart ass.

Tracey let go of him as soon they were out of their mother's sight, cleaning the boy’s sweat from her palm. “You’re disgusting.”

“It’s not my fault I have bad glans.”

Trevor whistles and they walk to the car. Tracey doesn’t know what she expects to find opening the backseat door, however, there’s nothing. It’s as normal as it has ever been.

Jimmy dozes off to sleep as soon he climbs in and puts on the seat belt. She searches at the rearview mirror for her dad’s eyes to find they are covered by sunglasses.

“How was the rest of the fair? Any good?”

“Not really. And Jimmy didn’t win.”

“Maybe next time.” Trevor looks at her and smiles, she nods.

The radio is playing music with saxophones on it, she’s almost falling asleep too when a whoop makes her jump. The red and blue lights paint the inside of the car and the side of uncle T's face. Michael curses and they exchange a silent look, Trevor nods.  _ 'It’s okay' _ he announces while looking at the side mirror what would usually work to start calming her down, but doesn’t do the trick this time. Tracey can feel the heart hammering against her chest when an officer shines the flashlight on her eyes and the interior, knocks on the window with the knuckles two times.

“Good night gentleman. Where are we headed tonight?”

“Just going home sir, my younger one had a science fair at Bill-Moore Elementary School and it’s pretty knocked out.”

"I see..." The man leans in, scratches his beard and nods. He crooks the head to Trevor at the passenger seat. “And you’re?”

“The cool uncle, obviously.”

Trevor takes off the cap for a moment to point at the braids and the policeman chuckles, looks back at Michael.

“Why the sunglasses, pal?”

“Protecting my eyes.”

“From… The sun? At…” he checks the wristwatch. “Seven o’clock?”

“The amount of idiots misusing high beams around this neighborhood is insane. Just doing my part to drive safely, that’s all.”

Tracey's eyes follow the line of sight of the officer to her father's face to his bruised knuckles and she hiccups, stealing his attention.

“Dad, I feel sick.”

“I guess mom was right about the Gummy Bears, eh? It’s okay, buttercup. I’m sure Mr. Policeman won’t make us sit in traffic with two kids for longer than necessary.”

The man smiles at Trevor and leans to the side to give another glance at the backseat as if he was looking for something out of ordinary. Once the light from another passing car reflects in the mirror it makes something shine on the floor next to her brother’s feet. Before the man sees it, Tracey reaches out for it and brings the hand to her stomach. Tracey really feels sick.

“I need to puke…”

“Can we go now, sir?”

“I still need to see some license and registration for the ca-”

“I really need to-”

Tracey has time to open the door just enough before throwing up on the officer’s boots, coughing and hiccupping again. She cleans the mouth on the inside of her shirt and the hand on the jeans, hoping none of it had ended up on her hair. The policeman curses, shakes the boot to get rid of the vomit being clearly disgusted by it.

“Just… Just get away from here, you’re free to go.”

Michael nods and turns the car on to get back to the road.

“Good shit.” Trevor pats Michael’s shoulder, holds onto the back of his neck before turning back to check on the girl. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now we’re going home.”

She can see Michael smiling softly from the mirror and smiles back. After he grunts while getting out of the jacket at a red light and giving it to her, Tracey snuggles inside of it feeling the familiar smell calming her down enough for them to think she fell asleep too. She doesn’t though. Opening her hand to find the thing she grabbed from the ground resting inside of it, Tracey notices it’s not just a regular ring. It's a wedding ring with ' _ Angela & Ralph'  _ engraved on it.

The car stops in front of their house ten minutes later and Michael rests his hand on Trevor's leg to get his attention. “Can you take Jimmy to bed?”

“Sure, you want help to-”

“No, I’ll be fine.”

Trevor hops out of the car and opens the backseat door carefully to keep Jimmy from flopping over, clicks the seat belt free and picks the boy up easily to take him inside. Michael takes off the sunglasses and sighs tiredly. Tracey wants to keep pretending she’s asleep but then she sees the cut under his eyebrow and the bruised starting to show up. It makes her throat tight.

“Dad…”

“Hey, hey, it’s fine.”

She frees herself from the seat belt, passes the arms around him as she can to whimper against his neck. He pats her hair gently.

“Don’t cry, dad just hit the face…” Tracey sobs because she knows it’s not true, squeezes the hug until he hisses. “…And the rib. It's okay, sweetie. Daddy’s a fool.”

“Daddy’s right about that." Trevor puts half of the body inside the car to unbuckle his seatbelt too. "Now let’s go, Mikey, come on. Or do you want uncle T to carry you to bed too?”

“Bite me, T.”

“All these invitations… I might take it one day…”

Trevor walks around and opens the door so Tracey lets go and Michael steps out of it with more complaining. Despite resisting at first, he allows the other man to help him inside the living room, pour him a glass of whiskey and turn on the TV. When Trevor crunches down next to the couch to press the pack of ice on his face, Tracey sees her dad hold his hand in place and don’t let it go for a long time. He closes his eyes as if he was exhausted and she stops on the steps, runs back outside.

Doesn’t take long for her to be followed. Trevor closes the door behind him, does nothing but breathe the crispy air by her side for a good while. Then, he extends the open hand towards her as he knew. Tracey looks at the ring one last time before handing it to him. She’s sobbing in his arms soon after, so much that the words can’t even find a way to come out.

“Is dad going to be alright?”

“He’ll be fine.”

“Was it Ralph who did that to him?”

He pulls away to look at her in the eyes, watches her clean the nose on the jacket sleeve. For a moment Tracey wonders if he’ll lie to her too.

“Yes, it was. He was being too mouthy, got into a fight with your dad in the parking lot. Turns out he was drunk, so drunk that he ended up falling asleep and we drove him home.”

"But..." she pulls away and stares at him trying to find any signs and whimpers because she knows it’s not a lie, but can also see it’s not the entire truth either. "His eyes were open..."

Something catches uncle T by surprise because instead of smiling and poking her nose, he opens the mouth just to close it again. Instead of joking and tickling her he swallows hard, looks down at his feet with a frown. He doesn't find words to offer her and that only makes it even scarier. She should be angry for being lied to, but Tracey hugs him anyway because that guy was creepy and hurt her father and suddenly everything seems too confused and weird.

“He won’t come after dad, right? To fight with him again?”

“No, he won’t." he looks her in the eyes again and shakes the head. "I’ll go give this back to him and that will be it. I’m sure he’ll be so ashamed of making an ass out of himself that won’t dare to show up again.”

“Good. I don’t want him near my dad.”

“Little moose… Your dad is tough, it’s just a bruise, he’ll be okay.”

“H-he’s feeling p-pain an-hurt… And the c-cop…”

"Tracey, look at me." The sobbing starts to make her hiccup again and Trevor puts the hands on both sides of her face so she can't focus on anything but his brown eyes. In all those years the girl had never seen him being so serious. “Listen to me,  _ nobody _ is going to hurt your father. For as long as I breathe nothing bad will ever happen to him and  _ nothing _ will take him away from you. Do you understand? I’ll  _ never _ let anything happen.”

“Promise me, uncle T?”

“I promise.”

He holds the pinky finger up for her to link up with hers before pulling her for another hug until she’s not scared anymore. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy...


	11. Tracey, 2004

Tracey looks away from the notebook she had been drawing into when she hears the front door close. Her mother’s heels clicking on the floor announce her presence before she appears in the room with a hat in hand and no makeup.

“Ready?” 

The girl wants to ask why she’s wearing all black clothes and sunglasses big enough to cover the eyes, but Amanda’s already leaving, calling for her brother who’s in the bathroom doing God knows what. Tracey leaves the pens on the ground and follows her mom.

"Where 's dad?"

“He’ll meet us there.” Amanda puts half of the body inside the other room to grab a small-sized bag, places it in the middle of the living room. “Jimmy, we have to leave soon!”

Tracey watches her moving around the house, checking if something was missing despite having started packing a week ago. She never really grabs anything to add to what was already inside the bag, just holds it in her hands for a while before putting it back into place. She had just put an old book down when the girl steps in front of her to get her full attention.

“Where’s  _ there _ ? He was supposed to be home from work already.”

“I already told you,” her mom holds both sides of her face between the palms and leans forward to kiss her forehead. Tracey wonders why there’s mud on her shoes and why she smells like she had been smoking when she hates cigarettes. “We’re moving.”

“Moving?” Tracey steps back and away from her. “Dad said  _ maybe _ and that it would be just a vacation.”

Amanda sighs and takes off the sunglasses.

“You’re going to love it. It’s going to be so good for you and your brother, for our family! You’ll have your own room and there’s a pool in the house and we can get a dog!” the teenager blinks while trying to digest all that new information being dropped on her so suddenly. “Los Santos is sunny and our new neighborhood is glorious. I’m so excited for you to see it!”

Tracey looks around and shakes the head.

“Los Santos? What about my classes? My friends? What… What about our stuff? Most of our clothes aren’t packed and t-”

“We’re buying new ones.”

“But… Why? And with what money?”

The woman presses the lips into a grim line, the sunglasses make a cracking sound at her hand. “Dad and I decided…”

“Are you two breaking up? That's why dad isn't here yet?”

“No! No, no, no honey. We’re all going. Me, you, your dad and Jimmy… If he get out of the bathroom. James!” she steps closer to the bathroom door and knocks on it. “Don’t make me ask again! We’re running late!”

Tracey shakes her head once more and looks outside to the dark clouds on the gray sky of North Yankton. A small plane crosses to the north, disappears from view after a moment. Her mouth falls open. “What about uncle T?”

“You know he’s not really your uncle, right?”

“Obviously, mom… But that doesn’t matter, he’s family.”

The statement makes her mother stop in place, hand hovering the bathroom handle for a few seconds before giving up trying and massaging the temple. She’s avoiding Tracey’s eyes and the girl knows it. “Trevor isn’t coming.”

“Why?”

“Darling, don't raise your voice please, just…”

She’s interrupted by Jimmy who pulls the door open and hops out with a big smile on his face. “Sorry mom, had to turn those crepes into crap. Get it?”

He giggles and Amanda closes the bathroom door trying to keep the bad smell from following the boy outside. Jimmy adjusts his stupid video game themed backpack straps on the shoulders.

“Okay, time to move!" she claps and spins around to check the house again before turning to the boy. "James, do you have everything you need?”

“Yes, I’m ready to rock!”

“Great, bub. Tracey, what about you?”

“I…” she looks out the window again and smiles. “Yes, mom. I'm ready. Let me just grab the backpack in my room.”

“Alright.” Amanda sounds surprised by the lack of resistance and the girl runs to the room.

The winter coat is zipped all the way up, the beanie covering the ears and her gloved hands pick up the backpack. From the small corridor, Tracey can see her mother’s back. She’s doing Jimmy’s laces because both of them love to share small moments like that even if the boy’s already big enough to do it himself. They would both miss it if it just went on a snap of fingers. Tracey understands, you can’t just let go of someone one day and leave them behind and that’s why she sneaks out through the backdoor without making a sound. She needs to find uncle T.

It’s cold. The snow and drizzle had stopped but there’s still a blanket of white covering the roads where Tracey’s walking. The sun rays were struggling to pass in between the thick clouds colored in dark blue and seemed like they would just give up trying soon. She made a good distance in the last 15 minutes and already was past the residential area. The girl knew it was a bad idea to walk around at night, so, with the hands shoved deep inside the coat pocket, she started walking faster.

Tracey didn’t exactly know where she was going if she was being honest. They have never visited uncle T at his home in all these years so how would she know? All the crumbs of information given to her by her parents were vague like  _ ‘north’  _ like he was Santa Claus or  _ ‘hell’ _ like he was the Devil and they’ve always given uncle T mean looks to keep him from telling her the real place. She hated all the secrets and lies and being treated like she was brainless. Uncle T might not always side with her, she knew he couldn’t even if he wanted to, but he’s loyal. He always finds a way to be there for her and now was her time to be there for him.

With that in mind she ignores how wet the boots are getting and the sensation of cold water soaking her socks, looks both ways carefully and crosses the street to pass a gas station she didn’t recognize. Rubbing the eyes to get rid of the dry sensation on them doesn’t help as she expects, feels like there’s sand behind her eyelids every time she blinks. Tracey curses to the freezing wind. She should have got a water bottle before leaving.

She can’t believe it. She absolutely can’t believe her parents didn’t tell uncle T about the move. At least her dad should have said something. How could you move to another state and not tell your best fucking friend? Tracey turns the face down to cough against the collar of the coat while passing a gun store, swallows hard to stop the itch on her throat as someone whistles making the sound echo through the parking lot. On a mental note, Tracey tells herself to remember calling up Marisa and Harriet to say goodbye before really leaving for Los Santos.

Someone whistles again. Tracey tries to ignore it. Who the fuck would whistle to a random lonely child on a street at dusk? It probably wasn’t at her. It couldn’t be, right?

“What a cute little thing like you is doing around here all alone?” She catches the man's reflection while passing by one of the cars. He’s older than her father, had sunken eyes, a bushy goatee and was following her. “Isn’t it my lucky day?”

He laughs, husky and malicious and Tracey simply knows in her guts that she has to run for her life.

The girl runs as fast as her feet can take her, sees the patch of what was a forest once as an opportunity to escape in between the trees. The winter had made the trees dry and dead so the branches scratch her face while she hops rocks on the ground to keep moving forward. Tracey doesn’t look back, not even when her backpack gets stuck and her beanie falls forgotten on the snow.

Her knees hit the ground hard when she reaches the other side. There’s a cut on her glove and beneath that at the palm of the hand where the blood starts oozing from, but at least nobody is following her anymore. She’s alone.

She's alone and it’s getting dark. Now that her clothes are wet from falling in the snow, she has to hug herself to keep from shaking too much, her cheek hurts and the toes are tingling as if hundreds of tiny needles were inside her boots. Tracey keeps walking despite the discouraging sight ahead that shows nothing but empty fields. She has to keep being optimistic. Every step is a step closer to uncle T.

Soon she would knock on a door to find him standing there with his messy hair and she would think to herself how sad it was that the locks had started to fall. They would sit on a bright and comfortable orange couch, which he insists on calling chesterfield, in the middle of a living room where one of the walls is occupied by books like the ones he mentioned about poetry last time they talked. The other wall would have framed photos of him and dad and Jimmy and mom and also some of his mom, dad and brother, you know... Family. He would scold her for being out in the cold at that time and she would apologize and then he would lend her his Denim jacket with that fluffy wool inside and a  _ 'tuque' _ so she can warm up.

They would drink a huge mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows and she was going to ask him to move out of North Yankton too. Uncle T would smile and agree to it, she was sure of it. Uncle T would say he was always going to be there for them because  _ ‘what would your dad ever do without me, eh?’ _ and poke the tip of her nose.

Tracey smiles to nothing in particular before wondering if she had walked in circles, tries to remember if she had already passed by that creek. Her memory is kind of hazy. Her teeth are clicking together, but at least her ears and toes are numb now. It’s so cold and dark, she really needs to rest, just for a while. There’s a phone booth right on the entry of someone’s property and that’s where Tracey aims for.

Seems like hours passed until she manages to open and close the booth door behind her, slide the back against the tough plastic to sit on the floor of that tiny cubicle. There's not much room, however, it shelters the girl from the wind at least, allows her to hug the legs closer to the chest and rest the forehead on the knees trying to concentrate some much-needed heat close to her body.

She didn’t intend for it to go so wrong like that. It was supposed to be easier. Tracey thinks about her father and how mad he’s going to be. Then she gets mad herself because if they had told uncle T about the moving idea, or at least told her, she wouldn’t be there right now. The girl thinks about her mom’s hugs, always so warm and soft and how her heartbeats calm her down. She even thinks about her brother, his dumb surprised face at everything and smelly farts she could gladly go by without.

That was supposed to renew her hopes, boost some energy for her to keep going, but then Tracey looks around and realizes she has no idea where she is. There’s nothing familiar about the place. Not a single thing. Wherever this was, Tracey had never been before and realizing she wouldn’t be able to go forward scares her just as much realizing she can’t go back.

It’s hard for her to breathe, the booth that was a safe shelter turns into a stuffy cage and her fingers escape the handle a few times and she’s not strong enough to yank the door open. It’s stuck and she’s lost. She’s lost in the middle of nowhere inside a cubicle. She’ll never see her parents or her brother or her uncle T ever again, ever ever ever ever ever ev-

Above her panicked screams and roars, the punching and kicking, Tracey picks up the sound of something hitting the booth wall firmly. Her eyes meet a pair of dark ones that were slowly becoming milky white by the borders. The wrinkled woman stops tapping the door with the end of her cane, waves for her to step back and uses it to open at once.

“Dear Lord, my child, what are you doing here?”

Tracey breaks down crying as an answer, barely registers when another woman joins them other than her name is Dana and the old lady's name's Martha. They try to calm her down and get some basic information about her in between the sobs and call 911. Less than fifteen minutes later isn’t a police cruiser that stops near the phone booth, but an all-black car. A guy she had never seen and her family jumped out of it. Amanda reaches her first on a bone-crushing hug that the girl doesn’t mind despite feeling the whole body stinging.

“Trace, baby!” she kisses her entire face and checks if there are any parts of her that are missing. “Oh my God baby, we’re here.”

Her mom only let go when her eyes connect with Dana’s and she follows the unknown mustached man towards the woman and Martha to thank them for calling. Jimmy flashes a smile her way trying to pretend he wasn’t crying. Tracey's eyes look up from him as she catches the sight of Michael jogging towards her wearing dark clothes and a beanie. When he's only a few feet from her he stops. He does nothing. For half a minute, Michael just looks at her.

“D-dad? I-”

“Wha… What were you thinking?” he finally crosses the space in between them, firm hands grab her shoulders to shake it slightly. “What the  _ fuck _ were you thinking, huh?”

“I-”

“What… What were you thinking Trace? Goddammit! What were you fucking thinking? Tell me! Wha-”

She sobs and reaches for his jacket just to hold into something, to pull him closer and cling onto him and feel his warmth and his smell. His stern hands keep the distance between them as his eyes seem to search for an answer in hers. “I had to find uncle T! I had to-to tell him we’re moving!”

Michael let go of her to rub his tired face with both hands, steps away. Tracey steps forward trying to get closer again only to watch him hold the palm up for her to stop.

“You have to…” the voice gets stuck on his throat and he looks down before trying again. “You need to forget him.”

“Wha-Why?” she reaches for the sleeve of his coat, something, anything. “Why can’t he come with us?”

“Because he’s dead, Tracey!” the yell echoes on the empty street and makes her jump. “He’s  _ dead _ ! He’s fucking dead and he’s not coming back!”

She wants to say it’s bullshit but then she looks at his state, remembers her mom black clothes earlier and how she couldn’t look her in the eyes, the mud on her boots and something breaks inside her. It’s so painful it makes her nauseous. The control slips away from her like sand in between fingers. There’s nothing she can possibly do to stop this nightmare.

It’s almost funny when Tracey realizes it’s like she’s watching a movie. She can see herself standing there, blonde hair sticking everywhere and purple winter coat dirty with mud, wailing so much it is almost a howl mingled with words of denial. Michael cries too, sobs, apologizes repeatedly.

It’s almost funny when Tracey sees her dad stepping forward to embrace her like she always craved so much. It’s almost funny because she can’t feel it anymore, she can’t feel anything at all. Somewhere in the snow of southwest North Yankton, Tracey Townley had not only lost uncle T but her way back to herself too.


	12. Intermission II - Trevor, 1993

Baby blue.

That’s all Trevor can see when he opens the eyes and he hates it. Those two little words that carry so much meaning, laced together, mocking him. The sky was mocking him reminding him of Michael. Michael’s baby. Remembering him… As if he could forget.

Trevor doesn't know for how long he had been sleeping, much less for how many days he stayed awake before that. For a moment longer he just lays there, tries to ignore the cold surface beneath him while feeling everything hurt inside and out. It makes him miss being numb.

The wind makes him shiver, the teeth click together. It takes all of him to sit up and he’s rewarded with the view of an infinitude of open fields stretching for as long as his eyes can see from all directions, only a couple of small houses here and there were to be seen, 165 feet below.

Going down the water tower it’s a pain in the ass. One of Trevor’s boots gets stuck on the ladder on the last meter or something remaining and he falls, spits the blood out his mouth to the dry grass in between curses after pushing the body off the ground. He steals a pickup truck from one of the houses, watches the cuts from his knuckles reopen and feels it stinging as his grip on the wheel gets tighter and he speeds up to leave the town behind.

The jacket he’s wearing had a big cut now and the cold wins over the shitty heater once the night falls. His head feels so heavy, the throat so dry and the mouth so bitter, but there’s nothing. He had nothing. Not even meth. Not even a fucking dart at the glove box or a mickey. Trevor was alone, once again, he was alone. He steps into the gas to push the car to the max so if another vehicle comes in the opposite direction he can't even try to stop or turn the wheel to avoid a collision. He closes the eyes and hopes it happens.

It doesn't. He gets to Madison or at least that’s what he thinks the banner on the main street says since a stupid boat figure replaces the ‘a’ that was supposed to be there... M'Boatdison, whatever. Trevor’s muttering how much he hates it when he passes a big brick wall building and reads the big  _ ‘Yankton State University – 1881’ _ arc.

Nobody stops him when he follows one of the cars inside the campus or even seems to notice as he walks around with hands inside the jacket pockets and a cap, all those young silly people too busy with their own shit, stuck on their bubble completely unaware of the  _ real _ reality. It makes it easy for Trevor to find the right group of kids he was looking for and even easier for him to get all the pills they had without having to pay for them. A couple of shouts to the face, empty sexual threats to the ear and the tough punk boy was shaking in his boots. It’s not much, just some stimulants, but it’ll have to do.

It doesn’t. Even after crunching most of them with the bottom of a beer and snorting it with one of his last fifties, that only makes him… quieter? Maybe that fucking therapist fucker was right about prescribing him some pills to help him focus after all.

He manages to go back to his spot at the bar moving past the visual buzz to drink the beers in silence without feeling the usual urge to read everything on their labels until he knows the words by heart. Trevor can just sit at that stool and notice that hey, he’s hungry, he could totally drive another hour to that waffle house in Wessington Springs... That one where the corner booth near the window to the east has one of its seats dark orange instead of red, where he had used a switchblade to carve two tiny letters inside a heart on the table seven years before. Where almost two years ago he had sat with Michael for the last time.

He had sat there mindlessly using the fingernails to try to scratch the letters off the table and kept pushing down the acid pooling on his stomach.

“Can you stop, T?”

Michael dropped the fork and knife at the edge of the plate. His mouth was full but the eyes were still fixed on the eggs. He hasn't looked at Trevor since sneaking out of their shared bed in the morning, he rarely looked at him during those last days.

“When are you going to tell me?” Trevor had said, sounding more tired and weak than he’d liked.

For a long time, Michael had remained silent, going back to the breakfast as if he hadn't heard a word. Trevor was about to slam the fists on the table when he leaned back to let the backrest against the booth seat. He shook his head, eyes lost at the line where the road met the sky on the horizon.

“I’m not ready.”

None of them explained further what they meant by any of that, both too scared to do it. It was so sudden and painful like a fresh open wound you don’t want to poke and see it bleed because you just don’t know if you’ll be able to make it stop.

Now, it’s a strong jet of water to the face that brings Trevor out of his dreams. It’s so much water it feels like he’s going to drown. Putting the arms in front of the face does little to help and he can’t figure out his whereabouts until a rusty noise echoes, the water stops. There’s an old woman staring at him above her glasses.

“What are you doing in my yard?”

“Taking my weekly shower apparently…”

“You’ll be taking a bullet if you don’t leave!”

“Wow, I’m sorry, alright?” his boots slide on the mud that was forming from all the water as he tries to stand up. “I could swear this was a motel. Have I paid you for your services already?”

She yelps in shock, one hand holding the two flapping sides of the collar of her long nightdress closed tighter and the other hovering the hose valve again. It makes him hum and chuckle in a way that makes her even more scared.

“Oh, I love me some spunky, seasoned lady with no dentures… Ugh! So good.” Before he could take the second step in her direction, she’s spraying him again and stomping around like there were bugs trying to crawl up her legs. “Stop, woman! I’m going!”

The water stops and he bends over to cough. She adjusts the glasses back in their place and Trevor stretches the arms towards her with a growl just to watch her yelp again and hurry to grab the valve once more, ready to twist it. Trevor smirks, blows her a kiss and starts walking away. The stolen pickup was nowhere to be found, nor the bar, he was back to having no idea where exactly he’s just like before. The difference is that now he’s soaking wet from head to toes like a sad sewer rat and he had no drugs, which was just the worst part. There’s not a single thing ahead besides the countryside so it leaves him with no option other than walking.

Trevor walks for hours before finding a herd of cows and then has the brilliant idea of mounting one. Turns out, it doesn't work as expected. Most of them run away scared for their lives as he tries to chase them and when he finally finds one that stays put, she just keeps put, doesn’t move at all. All the other cows are herding together again a few feet away as nothing had happened just a minute later.

“It’s okay girl, I’m always left behind too.”

He leans forward to lay on her back, passing the arms around the animal’s neck as he can on what’s meant to be a hug. The way she moos makes him smile. He almost forgets the burn in his eyes and dullness on his chest. Trevor caresses her snout, pats her head softly and says goodbye. From the road, he watches the cow take her time before making her own path and then so does he.

After walking for another couple of hours, Trevor considers just stopping. What’s even the point in keeping going? What’s even the point of making his way back to Michael? Fucking Michael who was probably wearing khaki shorts and loafers like a dumb ass wanna-be posh piece of shit, playing house with his bitchy wife and kid. The kid. A girl, he had said on the phone after inviting him to visit, the most adorable little girl he had ever seen.  _ ‘Seriously man,’ _ his voice came out of the other side of the line.  _ ‘I was expecting her face to be like a wrinkly knee, but she’s just adorable.’ _ . Trevor had a laugh, downed his drink to pretend he didn’t care as much as he did while asking for the address.

Michael was a dad now. He had his own shot on raising a human now and Trevor could see the pure urgency of being better than his father eating him up from the moment he got the news from Amanda. The way he changed, from the planning of heists to the way he walked like he had something to prove about himself and something to hide now more than ever. The nightmares about his childhood came back and he stopped talking about it, stopped mentioning his old man altogether as if the simple mention of him would summon the man. He shoves all on a box and kicks it inside a room at the back of his mind, slaps Trevor’s hand away every time he tries to reach for the doorknob.

He hated that, how it started by losing access to one room and soon the entire house that Michael was, had just been gone. Trevor was locked outside of the only home he’d ever felt safe in, the only home he ever felt he belonged to.

When all they had was each other, they used to be able to talk about everything, he remembers. At first only when the lights were off, surrounded by the darkness of the night outside the tiny car they had stolen for shelter or side by side in the motel room. Then with the lights on like real confidants talking about  _ real _ shit like the one time in Rantoul, Kansas where they stopped to check the big aircraft boneyard in 85.

“So plane carcasses do turn you on, huh?” Michael had said, slapping his ass before falling on the bed with a laugh. “Fuck, I need a shower.”

“No, you don’t.”

Trevor threw himself on top of him, head on his stomach holding his body in place with his and still panting. He felt the other patting his head, chuckling while trying to catch his breath too.

“Alright man, what’s the story with showers? Which one of the stepfathers ruined it for you?”

It was supposed to be just a joke, Trevor knew, but his jawline automatically clenched so much it hurt. Michael had pretended to look for the Redwood pack despite knowing they’re next to the lamp. He was opening his mouth to change the subject when Trevor decided that if the other hadn’t left him so far, maybe it was safe to open up a bit more.

“No stepdads this time. Foster family. The pretend parents were too busy all the time so pretend-sister had to look out for me.”

“How old were you?”

“Five, I think, maybe less? I don’t really remember. Just some stuff like the cracked green tile, the fog and how the water was always so so so so fucking hot. I couldn’t reach or breath and-”

Trevor turned the head slightly down so Michael couldn’t see his face anymore, curled the fingers on the sheets to keep from hitting the forehead to expel the hazy memories. Moments later, his hand went to trace a random path across the extension of Michael’s thigh and lower abdomen to distract himself, kinda expecting Michael to squirm away, the fact he had let it happen surprised him. He drew the line of the scar that sits on the left side of his hip with the fingers, looked up again while Michael lightened up a cigarette, face still flushed from the orgasm.

“What was this one?”

“Misfire.” he raised the eyebrows completely aware of Michael’s amazing skill at shooting and caution while handling guns. It made the other man smirk on a cocky way after puffing the smoke. “Father dearest was showing me how to be a man and shoot a revolver, but he was so drunk he fucked it up while reloading. I was eight, it just grazed and still hurt like a bitch.”

Trevor sat up in the single bed making the mattress creak underneath them, held the arm out to show a scar on the inside part of his forearm.

“See this? Same thing. Only mine was courtesy of stepfather 13. And he was sober. And I was five. But yeah.”

He shrugged because that had been just another day for him, however, Michael stared at him with a look that could easily be read as pity, a look that Trevor would have killed people for sending his way. But it was Michael and because it was coming from him, the look only made his insides flutter in excitement because it only meant that Michael cared. Trevor couldn’t resist and touched his chin. He probably took too long sliding the pad of his thumb against the stubble because Michael pulled the head away.

“What about this?”

“Football.” he blew smoke on his face and put the other hand over the dick to protect it from being hit, cursed when Trevor pinched his nipple instead. “Asshole… It’s from the final in 82 against the South Yankton Falcons, a great game. It was pretty tight and then I passed their defense, broke the 30, ran the 20, went through the sidelines and then 10, 5 and boom. I dive to the ground, somehow hit the fucking chin hard but it’s a touchdown and we win.”

“Front page of local paper all-state QB days, Michael Townley, high school heartthrob.”

“That's me, baby, the one and only.”

“Oh my God, look at you… Look at this smug face!” Trevor laughed and grunted while throwing the head back to look up before watching him take another hit from the cigarette. “I bet you were insufferable back then, weren’t ya?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, right… You dumb, cocky jock.”

“Hey! I’m a retired celebrity of the most popular sport in North America, show some respect here.”

“You’re full of shit! I thought baseball was the number one sport here.”

“That's because you're a silly little Canadian, eh?”

Trevor went for his nipples again and Michael struggled to keep his hands away without dropping the cigarette either on them or the bedsheets. He managed to hold it in between the lips and used both of his hands to yank Trevor’s body closer to fall on top of his again, wrapping a leg around his and an arm around his shoulders.

“Fuck you Mikey,” he nuzzled the cheek against the other’s chest hair after they stopped fighting, cracked the neck to look at him and point to a scar on his own eyebrow. “At least in hockey we can fight for real and all as part of the established tradition.”

“Right, you guys can kerfuffle.”

Trevor pressed the forehead against his abdomen and guffawed until he was coughing. “You’re such an idiot…”

“Idiot? Wow. Are you trying to kerfuffle with me, bud?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Michael smiled so big that Trevor had to hide the face on the space just below his rib cages to keep him from seeing the pathetic besotted on his face. He felt him touching his hair to play with it and the feeling of goosebumps spreading all over when the fingertips brushed over the nape of his neck made him hold the breath, the heart skipped a beat. It lasted just a moment before he stopped.

“Why didn’t you keep playing hockey?”

“Disagreements with the coach values, I’d say. I’m a man of many talents Townley, I wanted to go out and explore the possibilities.” Trevor reached out to snatch the cigarette, poked the tiny mark on his top lip before taking a puff. “What’s this one?”

“My father again, don’t remember the story. I probably forgot to call him sir or yawned too loudly or I don’t know… Breathed too much oxygen.” Michael snorted, mindlessly taking the hair tie that was holding Trevor’s hair on a ponytail and looking like he was considering trusting him with more or not. “This one time he slapped me so hard I lost almost half of my hearing. All because I got a necklace from my grandma.”

“Was it a puka shell one? Because if it was you totally deserved it.”

“Fuck you, alright?”

They shared a laugh, Michael pulled the hair tie to snap it against his skin right on the nose, hissed while getting bit as revenge despite how Trevor felt his cock twitching with interest by the way he licked over the damaged spot. Trevor had done it again and once more just to relish the breathy moans that managed to escape the thin lips pressed together and enjoy the needy way he was tugging his hair.

“How much do you think your dad would hate me, eh?”

“You? A fucked up Canuck kid with long hair who loves to wear dresses and kill people for fun? My… Uhm, fucking best friend?”

“Quiet literally fuckin best friend...”

“Yeah, yeah… He… Uhm, I…”

Trevor heard his heartbeat peeking up the pace and pressed the body closer against Michael’s hoping he hadn't done it again, and hadn't pushed him too hard and too fast. He squeezed him slightly and caressed his rib cage to keep his attention on him instead of retreating back to his mind as he did sometimes. “Your dad, ugh… Hate the guy.”

It seems to work somehow. “You and I both.”

Michael smiled and relaxed a bit, took the cigarette back. Trevor blew the smoke before spreading the hand over his chest to caress it with eyebrows frowned in concentration. In his mind, he had at least 12 different great plans for killing the old man, but couldn’t decide which was his favorite. Maybe running him over with a big hay rake? Peeling off the skin of his face? Hanging him with his own guts? Suffocating him with his balls? That would be kind of funny, wouldn't it?

“Yeah… Fuck your dad.”

“Fuck my dad? Ew.”

He chuckled and Trevor didn't mean it like that, but wriggled the eyebrows and hummed with interest after giving it a thought about it.

“Honestly, I could fuck your dad so good… Really! Find his prostate and pound into it so nice and hard I would milk him fucking dry. I bet that after I was done with him, he would be a new man. Just saying.”

“T!” Michael had put out the cigarette on the ashtray and blew the smoke upwards. On a swift move that made the bed creak again, he flipped their bodies on the mattress leaving them almost too close to the edge, pinned Trevor down. He looked disgusted with the idea but he was laughing. “Don’t ever say shit like this again!”

“I might start moaning just your last name when you fuck me from now on…” rolling the hips upwards against the other, he breathed out one of those obscene moans he knew Michael loved to hear. “Fuck yeah Mr. Townley, just like that, I love when you fill me up like that…”

“Stop it, T!”

“Okay, okay...” he clicked the tongue not wanting to make him too angry about it, but then Michael pressed their hips together so he could feel his boner and smiled. “Sorry, daddy Townley.”

“I fucking hate you, you crazy fucker.”

Trevor laughed, lifted the head from the bed to try to steal a kiss that missed Michael’s mouth for an inch when he turned the face away slightly.  _ ‘One day…’ _ he grinned to himself,  _ ‘You just wait, Mikey’ _ . Michael shook the head side to side, tightening the grip on his wrists and he wrapped the legs around his waist.

"Show me how much... I wanna see it."

Michael’s hands traveled down his sides and the fingers started tickling him, making Trevor erupt into a mess of giggles and screams that filled the entire room. It was not how he was expecting it to happen, but that's how they end up breaking down the motel bed that night.

On his current journey, walking down the empty road, Trevor doesn't know if it was a good idea to visit him in his new life. The problem was he never really knew if what he was doing was a good idea so he continues to walk anyway as the clothes are taking ages to dry thanks to the shy sun hiding above the thick gray clouds. There’s an old, dusty, yellow Emperor near what looked like some sort of barn and Trevor knows he should be more careful, take some time to look around for the owner or anyone, but he’s so tired that he just goes for it.

Kicking off the boots once inside, he massages the foot with the thumbs as his stomach growls. The heater begins to work its magic drying his damp clothes and hair. If he closes his eyes it’s almost like he’s back in the old days, he thinks, no place to stay or food to eat. The familiar misery is strangely comforting. Trevor rests his head on the seat and dozes off.

This time it’s not a sweet grandma lady waking him up with a jet of water, but a bulky bald man pulling him out to the dusty ground.

He shouts something Trevor can’t quite hear with the noise ringing on his ear from one of the punches connecting to his jawline or even answers after another punch hits him square on the nose. That’s another familiar situation, almost pleasant. If this was a different circumstance, Trevor would be laughing despite all the bleeding. He would kick his way free from the man, switch their places to strangle him with his bare hands until he stopped shaking and breathing. He would steal the shovel from the hands of the guy joining the fight and beat him up, pop his head off the body when he was done. Trevor would, but he didn’t have any meth and the best he can do is bite the bald guy until he yells before being knocked out cold by his buddy.

Next time when his eyes open up, well at least one of the eyes does, all he sees it’s pitch black. It triggers such a bad memory of being locked inside the bottom cabinet of a kitchen that Trevor does his best to ignore the pain all over his body and crawl away from whatever hole that was. With the back against a tree, alone and hurt, Trevor breaks down to the foggy images of fucked up pieces of his childhood he did the best to suppress. The sobbing turns into howls, makes him feel a sharp pain in his head like a needle’s sliding into his skull.

‘ _ Oh Trevor, shut up at once!’ _ he hears his sweet, darling mother saying,  _ ‘I don’t wanna hear nothing, not an even single peep! You sniveling prat! Now go, you better get out of my sight, boy!’ _

He nods to the blank space ahead, fights to make his breath steady, notices he doesn't have boots anymore, or money as a matter of fact. Those assholes had probably thought he was dead and tossed him off the road to a ditch near some small creek. Fucking amateurs.

Takes him a long time to climb back to the road. He’s sure some of his ribs had been broken but at least they haven’t shoved anything up his ass, which honestly, knowing the rumors about some of the creeps of the area, was a huge win. There’s a big sign a few meters away and when he squints his eye just a little, Trevor can read  _ ‘Cresdarb’ _ .

He manages to reach the gas station and check for his injuries at the washroom mirror. Nothing he hasn't healed before. After cleaning up the face and hands to get most of the mud out, Trevor leaves and is breathing in the nice smell of gasoline as deeply as the ribs allow him to when his eyes fall into a trash can next to the entry, a half-eaten turkey sandwich sits there beneath some crunched napkins.

There’s no shame on Trevor when the food sets into the floor or his stomach. He’s not picky, never was. His mother had taught him not to waste, how to be so thankful for every crumb of bread, every burnt crisp of meat. If your body doesn’t like something it’ll just push it back out and depending on how hungry you want to be while waiting for the next meal you can try to hold it in or not, if you didn't want to try your luck and wait, just eat it all back. That’s how he always dealt with it, at least, how his mama told him.

He heads further into the town with the plan of stealing some alcohol from a liquor store to go with the sandwich but the thing is over in another two bites. If those shitty cough medicines didn’t give him massive headaches and constipation, he would grab some as dessert from the pharmacy ahead. He’s almost willing to risk it when he hears a lighter flicking.

“Now that’s the walk of shame of a man who had a rough night…”

The owner of the voice is a man leaning at the outside wall of a store. He’s holding a cigarette with one hand and scratching the beard with the other, staring at Trevor with narrow eyes.

“That’s just the way I like my nights to go, bud.”

The man chuckles, puffs the smoke from the corner of his full lips. “From where I’m standing seems like you need a drink.”

“If you come closer you’ll see I might need that and something else too…” Trevor notices he’s wearing a leather jacket, lick the lips in anticipation. “Maybe something stronger. Do you think you can give it to me, cowboy?”

“I’m sure I have just what you need right here.”

The man gropes himself and drops the cigarette to crush it under the boots, nods behind him for Trevor to follow inside the house next to the store. Trevor’s so happy he wants to howl to the moon that’s sitting high up in the sky because that was just too good to be true. He’s not dumb, had done all that times enough to know where to look for the signs. The other guy though… Oh boy, he was in for a real treat.

Trevor had noticed from the very beginning how there was just one motorbike outside and when the front door closed behind him, as the guy crashed their mouths together on a hungry kiss, Trevor’s fingers ran down the leather to count the patches. There’s only two.

A baby biker.

It’s so good he moans into the kiss and pulls him closer against his body. The guy pushes him against the wall and gets bitten harder than intended for that. He hisses and Trevor does the same, bringing the hand to the ribs. “You’ll have to cut me some slack if my performance isn’t stellar this first round…”

Biker guy laughs, so sweet it  _ almost _ makes Trevor feel embarrassed. He pulls away and looks around before heading to the dining room vent only to come back waving a bag of meth at hand.

“Here, how about you take a hit now and if all goes well… Maybe I can get you more.”

Trevor licks his lips open in the most obscene way he can, palms the boner showing through the jeans as a promise with one hand while the other snatches the bag. He ended up having to get a pipe from the biker too, whatever, put it on his tab for later, it didn’t matter. All that matters is that feeling when the first hit fills his lungs with that bitter, dreamy, entrancing smoke and then… Nothing hurts anymore, nothing can hurt him. Nothingnothingnothingnothingnothinnothing. Trevor’s invincible, he can do anything, he’s ready.

“Good, huh?”

He opens the eyes to find a pair of dark brown ones staring at him. The pipe rolls on the ground when Trevor straddles the man to kiss him in the mouth and take his belt off at the same time. The business would be dealt with later. Now, it was time to have some fun and it's true what people say about biker boys making good toys.

“Hey…”

“ _ What? _ ” Trevor stops sucking marks on his neck and barks annoyed for being interrupted. “What’s it?”

“My name’s Jayden. I thought you’d like to know what you’ll be screaming tonight.”

He snorts. Oh Michael… Always so fucking lame with those lines, those silly goddamn lines and kisses that taste of Redwoods. Michael… Michael, Michael, Michael.

Trevor remembers. He was standing there looking at Michael as he paced in the middle of a heated discussion about how  _ their _ plans had changed. Despite trying to convince Trevor they would still be doing jobs. After all, he needed to feed another two mouths other than himself, but Trevor knew better. There was no more  _ we _ or  _ ours _ , no more  _ us,  _ not like before. What existed from that point forward were  _ his _ plans with  _ his _ family. Michael was just in denial. Trevor could understand that, he had been in denial too, for a long time. He had spent literal weeks trying to keep Michael from driving back to Linton, he had kicked and screamed and cried. He had made empty threats, impossible promises, had tried so hard to convince him to just stop and alright, maybe he had almost crashed the car on upcoming traffic on the way to the motel, but still.

There, on the eve before his marriage, there was no way to run anymore. Michael was going to be a father in some months and in the morning, Michael was going to marry Amanda. Michael would cut and trim the hard edges of himself to try and fit a mold he wasn’t made for, to play a role it wasn’t made for him. Michael would leave like everyone Trevor ever loved. He should have been used to it. He wasn’t, doubted he would ever be.

So he had allowed himself to instigate him and sat there watching Michael give in to the anger he had been building up, the tension that was making him shake all the way down to the city while they bickered. Trevor watched Michael throw a chair against the opposite wall and vibrate because he knew he  _ needed _ to let it out and because he knew it would be the last time he’d get to see it the shameless exhibition of Michael Townley real self – disturbed and vulnerable.

“ _ Answer me _ , T!”

“I don’t know what you want me to say, porkchop, other than you’re throwing all your life away for a kid it might not even be yours.”

“Oh, so you were doing me a favor back there on the road nearly colliding with that Granger? Is that it?” he stepped closer and pointed to his chest. “I-I have a lot of shit to lose!”

“What you have is a cord around your neck, one that you put there yourself, but hey bud…” Michael walked away again, ran a hand through the hair. “Have fun pretending you don’t know I’m right.”

“Just because you don’t have a famil-”

Trevor shoved Michael against the wall holding him by a fistful of the shirt before he could finish the sentence. “Fuck you, Townley.”

He had let him go and rushed to the car keys thinking about going back to the bar when he felt a hand holding the back of his coat making him stop in place. Trevor waited for him to say whatever the fuck he wanted to say so bad, but no words came for a long moment and he got tired of waiting. He was so tired of fucking waiting.

“Why don’t you fuck me yourself for a change?”

Trevor’s hand paused on their way to the door handle to fall back down. He turned around in time to see Michael gulping down and shifting the weight on the legs before trying to suppress all those signs of fear by puffing out the chest, holding his stare with a defiant look on the sharp blue eyes that were meant to display nothing but absolute confidence.

“You heard me. Why don’t you come here and make me beg for you to bend me over the bed and fuck me, huh?”

“Mikey…”

“Look, if it’s the last… I-Fuck.” he covered the mouth with the hand with the eyes closed for a couple of seconds before rubbing the back of the neck. “It has to be you and it has to be now and I can’t say it, but… Fuck, I really need-”

When Trevor moved in to connect their bodies, Michael met him halfway. His hands pulled him closer by the coat, the shoulders, the face. It pulled him in, in, in. Michael was breathing loudly and fast, the body shivering and for a while, they did nothing but held each other. Trevor had shut the eyes and focused on the feeling of Michael’s hands snaking up the back of his neck on his scalp in between the locks of hair, the tip of the nose against his earlobe as Michael breathed him in, the kisses on his jawline when he gently rubbed the cheek against his stubble.

Michael chuckled suddenly, pulled back slightly to look him in the eyes and then again when Trevor spread small kisses all over his face while squeezing his ass. “If we’re doing this…”

“It was your idea.”

“I know, okay? I’m just sayin-” Trevor cut him off with another kiss on the mouth, heard him groan and let him bite his lips as payback. Michael pulled back again with a smirk. “You better fuck me so good, make me cum so hard I-”

“Oh Mikey, you just wait…”

Michael had almost freaked out twice and decided to keep his back to him. Trevor didn't like the idea of not being able to watch his reactions but knew better than to push his luck too much. Kissing the nape of his neck and shoulder helped him relax, the hands stopped holding tightly to the bed frame as Trevor knelt behind him on the mattress and jerked him off. Michael finally nodded the go ahead so he could pick up the bottle of lube, knead the taint gently and slide the knuckle inside until he finds it.

Trevor would never forget the blissful noise Michael made for him, the divine relief of being touched so good for the first time, the intimate moment he was gifted with.

Michael had bucked the hips behind with an uncontrollable newly discovered urge and shivered, cursed himself for it. Trevor kissed his back, let him know it was okay, that he was safe, that he was going to take care of him.

"Do you trust me?"

"I do," he whispered quietly and like a rope who had been tangled on a knot for too long, Michael undid himself around Trevor.

They stretched time as much as they could so the night would last while hoping that the sun would never come up again. Trevor thrust deeper and faster with a hand fondling his balls and holding the base of his cock without ever touching the head while hearing Michael let out breathy rhythmic grunts in sync with his movements. Trevor wanted so bad to ask him how much he liked being fucked like that, but he couldn’t risk ruining that. No, they would have time, he could wait.

Michael adjusted his position by hunching over slightly and Trevor must have hit the right spot because he moaned his name in such a needy way it set Trevor's entire soul on fire, so much that even wishing they could stay like that forever, it was too late to wait for him. He gripped Michael's hips to pound into it harder and hear it again and again in between prayers and curses and again until Trevor was cumming.

In a mixture of anger and desperation, Michael was about to complain about being denied his release after being so close to it when Trevor turned him around so he would lay with the back on the mattress. Trevor slid the fingers inside of him again as he finally wrapped the leaking head of his cock with the mouth and hummed around it. It didn't take long until Michael was fucking his mouth with abandon as he poked and massage the spot inside of him. It didn’t take long until Michael shouted a  _ 'f-fuck' _ so loud it definitely woke the entire motel and whimpered while filling Trevor mouth with so much cum it overflowed.

Trevor had licked him clean, traced a path up his abdomen and chest all the way to Michael’s neck with the tongue to taste as much as he could of him. He watched him waiting for the breathing to get back to normal with closed eyes and parted lips, nibbled his ear and nuzzled the skin behind it to breathe him in. After another minute of silence, Trevor pulled away to look at him with a frown.

“What are you thinking so much?”

“Honestly?” Michael grinned and opened his eyes. “Dirty Dancing.”

“Dirty Dancing? What, because you just had the time of your life?”

He laughed wholeheartedly and shook his head, raised his hand to sink the fingers into Trevor’s hair, and caressed his scalp. “Not because of the song, no, just some lines of the movie… It’s silly.”

Trevor wanted to ask what was known about his movie lines being silly to piss him off a bit and say he didn’t mind, but he didn’t have time to do it before Michael pulled him down to a kiss. Later, he fell asleep on his chest instead of hurrying out of the bed to pretend it had never happened and somehow, that made things worse. Trevor spent the whole night wondering if he could hear his heart cracking inside the rib cage with each hour passing, getting close to the time he’d be exchanging vows with someone else.

The stubborn sun was sinking through the curtains when the phone ringed and Michael unwrapped himself from him to sit at the edge of the bed.  _ ‘Hey baby,’ _ his voice cracked, he blamed the early hours,  _ ‘yes, I can’t wait either.’.  _ Trevor rolled to his side, watched Michael watching him through the window reflection for a moment longer before getting up to disappear into the washroom.

The drive to the church was what Trevor imagined a drive to a funeral must feel like. Michael turned the radio on trying to relax but These are the Days of Our Lives by Queen started playing and he turned it off mid-chorus. When the car stopped near the entry road that leads to the small church, they stared straight ahead in silence.

“Last chance to run away.”

“Don’t say that.” Michael looked at him with eyebrows frowned, a serious face. “Why do you have to say that?”

“Relax, it’s a joke.”

“It’s not a joke, T! What the fuck it’s wrong with you?”

“Mikey…”

“Don’t  _ ‘Mikey’ _ me! I know you live your life as if you haven’t any kind of responsibilities but  _ I’m not like you _ !”

“Okay sugar tits, if you want to still have any teeth when you enter that church, you better calm the fuck down!”

“That’s why you’re here?” he turned slightly on the seat to face him, back turned to the building. “To cause a fucking scene at my wedding and ruin everything for me?”

“I don’t have to ruin shit for you, Townley! You’re totally capable of ruining your own life without my fucking help. But that’s what you want, right? You  _ want _ me to ruin this…” Michael did nothing but blink and stare at him, knuckles turning white at the glove box panel and the nostrils flaring. “…As if I’m a fucking white knight ready to save you from the ugly witch so you can escape the evil prophecy and then put the blame on someone else when the dungeon comes tumbling down. You want an excuse to hate me so it’ll be easier to wake up next to her, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer, dropped his eyes to the radio and tried to swallow a lump on his throat. Trevor rested the head against the headset of his seat while looking to the road again.

“Sorry bud, but I’m not giving you this one.”

There was a small group of people getting together at the doors and some cars passing to the tiny parking lot ahead. Michael cursed under his breath with a hoarse voice he only used when he was feeling genuinely scared as recognized some of the people entering the church. It hurt Trevor to watch. So much he had to place both hands on his face to get his attention back and connect their eyes.

“Listen to me, Townley. You’re going to get in that church, stand in front of those people and marry that woman who’s the mother of your child. You’re going to swear to love and hold her from this day forward to the rest of your life and you better fuc-.” the words got stuck on his throat and he blinked the tears away. “You better fucking do just that because it  _ has _ to be worthy. It  _ has _ to be. It has been better than…”

Michael nodded with the hand resting on top of his for a moment, nuzzled the cheek against his palm for just a second and then he pulled away to leave the car.

Trevor remembers tasting blood on his tongue as Michael and Amanda exchanged the vows, remembers how that same man had whispered the same two words to him in a different sacred moment of union. He remembers how she quoted 1989’s movie When Harry Met Sally lines in between it…  _ ‘When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible’ _ she had said with a smile, tears running down the face, bump starting to show. He remembers watching them link arms and walking to the car, remembers it disappearing at the horizon and then… Nothing. Nothing until the phone call last week.

Currently beneath him, to his distaste, the biker guy keeps blabbering about how he was better than the other town sluts and Trevor nods to shut him up.

“Sorry, you’re just that good, you know? If you want me to be quiet, you’ll have to make me shut up… I can tell you’re freaky and I-Fuck, just like that, fuck… Yeah, go ahead, I don’t mind the fre-”

Trevor answers to that walking second-hand embarrassment of a man by covering his mouth with the hand. That would do the trick. He just needed a little more… Fuck, he just needed a little more. A little bit of silence to focus on the memories of Michael and his hands, his tongue, his cock, just… A moment longer before the images are blown away to dissolve in the air like smoke, like they always did nowadays.

Biker guy doesn’t give him that. He doesn’t even have the decency to warn Trevor that he’s about to cum, muffled moans interrupting the thoughts again. He also doesn’t care to finish him off before putting the palms against his ribs in an attempt to push him away.

It doesn't matter, Trevor keeps the eyes closed, tightens the grip over the guy’s mouth and rides him harder while trying to chase the vision in his head. He doesn’t even mind, barely notices really, the scratches Whatever His Name’s leaving on the skin of his abdomen and chest. He would have to suck it up with his over sensitive bullshit… If he had been a good boy and kept himself under control so Trevor could have finished first, Trevor wouldn’t have to be doing all the work himself. Selfish prick.

Great, now he was distracted.  _ ‘Fuckfuckfuck.’ _ Trevor thinks, jerking himself off with the free hand,  _ ‘1990, Las Venturas.’.  _ One of the many memories of doing it to Michael replay behind closed eyelids and it’s amazing how it’s still so vivid on his mind. The nice motel they had treated themselves didn’t smell of mold but had the biggest bed he had ever seen and a mirror so big it covered one of the walls. All that fancy stuff would make Trevor unconformable enough to complain nonstop, maybe take a big shit in the bathtub or get so fucking drunk he would puke all over the floor. However, he had got distracted by the look on Michael’s face while looking out the window. The colorful lights of the neon signs reflecting on his eyes, painting his figure in golden yellow like a halo.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” he asked, looking back at the shoulder with a smirk on the lips.

“Yes,” Trevor answered softly even if he knew for sure that they weren’t talking about the same thing. “It is.”

Michael was amazed by the city and Trevor was amazed by Michael. That night he sat behind him on the bed to jerk him off as slowly as he could while kissing, licking, biting his neck, whispering praises like he was a fucking god and watching their reflection on the mirror. Watching Michael stop struggling with his own shame and demons, unfold and crack open just a tiny bit more, stop thinking and rationalizing to just allow himself to  _ feel _ . Watching him lose up enough to smile and moan and for a brief moment, accept to lose the everlasting battle against himself and feel at peace with it.

Trevor cums all over the biker like an echo of Michael’s from his memories, feels the fingernails leaving marks at the guy’s cheek while trying to ignore whatever he’s trying to say. For a second, Trevor remains quiet. If he wished for it hard enough… Maybe… Maybe when he opened his eyes would be Michael there and not a random piece of shit.  _ ‘Pleasepleaseplease,’ _ he repeats to himself,  _ ‘pleasepleaseple-’ _

A sharp pain on his rib makes him open the eyes at once. It’s not what pisses Trevor off, no, it would feel a lot worse if it wasn't for the meth. What causes him to lose his mind is the fact his wish wasn’t hard enough. Or maybe it would have worked if only that idiot hadn't tried to punch him while he was wishing.

“What? What is it?” his brown eyes widen in panic and he understands. Trevor chuckles, raising the hips to free the biker’s dick. “My bad bud, barely felt you there.”

The biker grabs a hold of his wrist, tries to pull his hand away from his face and Trevor notices he’s still covering the man’s mouth. He doesn’t let go.

“What? Erotic asphyxiation is not your thing?”

Biker boy grunts, pull the head behind to free himself and suck in a long breath.

“Fuck man, I thought you were going to kill me!” he chuckles too and rests the head back on the chesterfield, whistles. “You pushed me to my limits there… Kinda felt like a human dildo for a moment, I’m not going to lie, but I liked it. You go hard and you just, you know, go and damn your cock looks great too, man… Wow. I’m kinda jealous, wish I ha-”

“You wish, you wish, you wish. I wish you could just shut the fuck up but we don’t always get what we want, eh? Or maybe…” Trevor covers his mouth again while making sure to block his nose too, grabs the back of his neck to keep it in place. “Maybe we do.”

It takes a while until he stops struggling and his body relaxes. Trevor’s about to stand up when the guy grabs a lamp to hit him in the head and he would have a good shot at trying, but fails in between coughs. Trevor, however, doesn’t fail, he doesn’t miss.

Trevor also doesn’t stop, not even when he can hear the mushy, squishy sounds and when the biker goes limp for real. When he finally stops, steps away from the dead body to laugh about the funny way the bottom of the lamp sits almost at the base of the skull inside the hole it’s the man’s face. Humming to himself, he washes the arms, hands and most of the blood off his face at the sink before checking the usual stash places for the hidden drugs and finding it easily. Trevor takes another hit of meth, steals all the cash from the place, from the drawer to the pockets of the corpse’s jeans and jacket. Finding beer at the minibar makes him throw the head back in delight and cheer.

“Yes! My favorite!” he glances at the remains of the dead man with a hand over the chest. “Aren’t you my fucking hero?”

Trevor makes sure to steal the boots too before leaving and turns left to the main road leading to the border of the town just as the microwave explodes starting a fire at the house 15 of 6 th  Street. He’s far away before the neighbors can even call emergency for help, one hand on the wheel of a black Glendale that smells like tangerine and sipping a cold beer. There are money and meth on his pockets and the road ahead is as clear as South Yankton skies can be that time of the year.

His mood only shifts two hours later when he crosses the state border. Twenty minutes later, staring blank ahead to the white front door of one of the smallest houses in Linton, Trevor hesitates. He hits the forehead with the palm of the hand, paces around, climbs the two little steps and breathes out.

Inside that house, right on the other side, was a world he wasn’t part of. A fucking world he barely even existed other than tucked away on a box of memories at the messy attic that was Michael’s brain. If he opened that door… Trevor touches the door frames, slides the hands up and leans forward to press the forehead against the wood, tries to breathe in as deep as possible.

He could go back. Just leave. Never open that door. He could not make his way back to Michael’s life. Live with the memories of Trevor’s Michael and not deal with whoever was going to be inside that house to present himself as Amanda’s Michael, Husband-Michael, Dad-Michael. Would Michael look different? Would it make Trevor feel different about him? Did he want to risk and find out?

Trevor pushes himself away and takes the two steps down to the dry patch of grass again, starts making the way back to the car.

“Where are you going?” he stops, closes the eye to the fluttery feeling on the stomach that makes him hold the breath and bite the lips. “I gotta admit T, with you lurking around the house without making yourself known I was expecting to find at least a turd on my porch.”

Trevor breaths out a laugh, looks up to the sky for a moment remembering a Greek myth he read so many years ago about going to hell to try bringing someone you love back to life and about how all the guy had to do for it was to keep looking forward, remembering how he couldn’t because he longed to look back at her, even if just for a while, just to see her there looking back at him. Trevor needed to look back at Michael, just to see him looking back once more.

“Well Mikey,” he turns around to watch him lean against the door frame and his heart thumps so hard it hurts. “Better make sure to check twice inside the rain boots next time you have to use it.”

“Fuckin’ A.” Michael smile grows and it's so fucking beautiful it hurts and still, Trevor smiles back. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

Like usual, Michael doesn’t wait but leaves a small crack open for him to go through. This time when his hands touch the door, he pushes it open and steps inside the tiny space it works as both kitchen and living room. It reminds Trevor of some of the houses he went to during his childhood only that smell way nicer, something like soap and baby powder.

Baby powder… Of course, the baby.

In the space between the TV and the loveseat, there’s a play fence for toddlers narrowly squeezed. He’s learning to the side carefully to see if it’s empty when Michael bumps against him on the way to the rusty fridge.

“You just missed ‘Manda.”

“Oh, that’s just…” Trevor stares at him with a fake sorrowful face, accepting the open beer that’s handed to him. “I don’t even know, I’m terribly inconsolable.”

“You’re an asshole.”

He opens a bottle for himself at the corner of the counter to sip half of the beer in one go and Trevor notices that some things are different, his face looks older and his expressions are tiring. His eyes, however, are still bright and sharp.

“And you look like an asshole, bud.” he lies, drinks and rests the elbows on the counter while hearing him hum against the ring of his bottle.

“You should see Amanda.” Michael covers his lips to muffle a laugh, leaving the bottle at the sink to wave his hands on a silent request for Trevor to stop laughing too. “Oh God, I’m kidding, don’t… It was a joke. She’s great. Tracey has been a challenge now she’s close to two, climbing the crib at night and I don’t know how Amanda manages to take care of her while dealing with another pregnancy. She’s fantastic.”

“Uhm, sure.”

Michael notices the sour tone in his voice and sighs, drops both of their empty bottles at the trash can and cleans the throat trying to find the balls to say what he wants to say. Trevor waits. A car passes down the street outside while they just look at each other in silence. He’s about to open the mouth when Trevor scratches the stubble.

“Tracey, huh? So that’s her name.”

“Y-Yes.”

“Interesting.” he crooks the neck and squints his eyes to the ceiling. “TraceyTraceyTracey, Tracey, Tra-cey, Tr-acey, T-racey. Did the wife pick?”

"No." Michael gives him a sarcastic smile. “I did. It’s uhm… From a movie. The Philadelphia Story?”

“Oh, yeah, I haven’t watched that sinc-”

He doesn’t complete the phrase because a loud squeak comes from a room at the other side of the house that makes Michael hurry past Trevor, jump the small fences to slide to the door at the other side.

“Uh-noooo!”

Trevor hears the baby's voice and sees him trying to hold a smile. Instead, he sighs and mingles it with a fake cough.

“You’re out of the crib.” she laughs in that excited way only toddlers do. “It’s not funny, young lady… Now, since he woke you up by trying to be funny li-”

“What, your kid’s a fucking cryptid? You say the name three times and she appears out of-” Trevor tries to cut him off with no success.

“-lways, uncle T will stay with you while I do the dishes.”

“-cking where… Wait, what?”

“Sit down. I don’t want you dropping my daughter's head first, go on.”

Obeying without objecting more out of confusion than anything, Trevor’s still blinking as the sound and meaning behind  _ ‘being uncle T’ _ unravels in his mind. A second after his back leans against the seat, he’s about to stand up again to tell Michael he would rather do the fucking dishes instead when her little feet hit his thigh first and then the bum rest on top of his knees. Michael let go of her completely, steps away and Trevor’s hands go to her sides by instinct to keep the baby safe as she wobbles trying to balance herself.

Trevor stares at her. He doesn’t know if he had ever held a child before and he isn’t really sure about what to do if not study her. Tracey Townley, the little bean Michael had stuck inside a random prostitute 18 months before and for all this time had been nothing but an abstract concept on his mind he wished that had never existed at all. Tracey Townley, rosy skin and fragile bones. Blonde fluffy hair smelling of green apple, big blue eyes framed by curtains of eyelashes, little fingers and toes. A breathing and walking piece of his favorite person in the entire entire world, right there, in between his hands.

Tracey stares at him. She stands up on his lap to level their eyes and stares at him. Tracey stares and she giggles and something inside Trevor’s chest stretches so much it hurts because she doesn’t care. That little girl doesn’t care if there’s a cut on the jacket he’s wearing, that there’s a meth pipe hidden in the pocket inside of it, that he hasn't showered since the encounter with the old lady miles away and probably still smells like a cow. She doesn’t care about his slip lip or bruised eye from the punches from the farmers, doesn’t care about how messy his hair is and how much weight he had lost or that his last meal was from a trash can. She doesn’t care about the hollow space at his chest that’s always hungry. She doesn’t care if he's wearing the boots of a dead man or that his cursed hands, those damned hands, were covered in blood just a few hours earlier.

Tracey Townley looks at him and she  _ smiles _ . Tracey Townley looks at him and it’s  _ happy _ . Tracey Townley, innocent and pure, looks at him and without any words says  _ ‘it’s okay, everything is okay’ _ and for the first time, he believes it.

She touches his cheek and stops a tear from rolling down to his chin. Trevor wants to hug her but is too scared he might break her so he settles to patting the girl on the head softly and looks up to see Michael wearing an expression he doesn’t know how to read.

“What?” he sniffs loudly with a frown. “She’s adorable.”

“I know. And she likes you so… I think you’ll have to stick around now.”

“Do I have a choice?”

"Nah," he sees him smirking and shaking his head, trying to ignore his hammering heart. "Not really, no."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you got curious about it, here's the Dirty Dancing (1987) line Michael was thinking about: "I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you."


	13. Trevor, august 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw - eating disorder mention

For someone with a tiny mind, Wade had done a pretty good job according to Trevor. He had successfully tracked Michael Townley, or De Santa, whatever, to his beautiful Spanish Renaissance styled mansion in Portola Drive, Rockford Hills.

Not only that but Wade had also stalked Tracey for a few days and handled her regular schedule to Trevor after he made sure the silly man had understood that he didn’t need to follow her anymore and in absolutely no circumstance would stalk her again now that he already had information he needed or else… Wade stutters and nods, promises on everything he’ll never. Trevor rewards him with a 4.73L tub of ice cream of his choice.

It really makes him nervous, the idea of meeting Tracey again after all those years, but it was something he needed to do and he needed to do before he was face to face with her piece of shit dad. It’s not like Trevor had never thought about it. For many years after Ludendorff, he dreamed of finding them, both while asleep and during drug-induced hallucinations. He would always kneel to her, hold the soft hands and beg for forgiveness in between his ugly cries of guilt and regret.

In those visions, Tracey would usually appear younger than she actually was when they had last seen each other for some reason. She would look down at him with a radiant halo around her head, put the palms against his cheeks like she had done the first time they met and Trevor would burn in flames until he was nothing but ashes. He would wake up feeling sick.

Now that he knew Michael wasn’t dead, part of the fear was gone, or better yet, had transformed into even more scorn for him and what he had done. It had been added to the list of reasons why Trevor should rip his chest open and eat his insides. There was another part, however, that still haunted him.

That’s what makes him postpone the first two times he’s in Los Santos and why he spends a long time looking at the gas station washroom mirror. He wonders if she will even recognize him… Good old uncle T, expect that now he did look old and most insane than ever. The sores and scarring from the skin-picking, the mostly bald head, the sunken eyes, the fucking smell he couldn’t get rid of even after really trying for once in a long time. He looked like a fucked up mess, just like he felt. Like she didn’t deserve to see.

His fist connects with the mirror and the thing shatters, chunks of it fall in the sink and on the dirty floor to break into smaller pieces. A dozen of Trevors stares at him with the same haunted look. He puts the hand on the pocket to feel the meth pipe and they all do the same. Maybe it was better to just take a small puff, it would help him relax. It was the only thing that would help. He grunts, decides against it. It was never just a small puff. Before even noticing he would be going all out so no, he would stay close to the pumps for a moment, breathe in the familiar smell of gasoline and then go talk to Tracey and not scare the shit out of her before she can even remember who he is. Because she would, right? She would remember him… Right?

While he waits from the driver seat of the Bodhi at the pier parking lot, Trevor sucks the blood off his knuckles. It attracts some stares from people passing and he resists the urge to pick up a fight with them, shoots them a smile that shows all his teeth, literally barks to some of the easily frightened ones just to see them jumping out their skins.

It takes almost an hour, but a group of girls comes out from the crowd towards a pink Massacro and even though this group of girls doesn’t have anything really different from any other that's strolling around the place with their small items of clothes and a cell phone attached to the hands, Trevor sees her and he knows. He just knows it’s her like it was some kind of instinctive shit, like he was some sort of bobcat mom and she was his own baby cub and he thinks that’s the most ridiculous thought to have but doesn’t make it less true.

She smiles as the girls drive off leaving a pink cloud of smoke behind, waves the hands to get it away from her face and coughs as Trevor gets out of the car. It’s just a couple of meters away, but he hesitates, thinks about going back to the car and driving off. He scratches the face, laughs to himself about how dumb that is, regrets not smoking some meth.

Trevor’s about to find a hidden corner to do just that when she looks up from the phone and their eyes meet. It’s one of those moments like right before you enter a bank for a robbery or before you leave it with heavy bags where time gets all mushy and the blood is rushing in your ears and you hold your breath because you have no idea what’s waiting for you at the next tick of the clock. Tracey goes through a whole spinning wheel of emotions right before his eyes. First is confusion, doubt, denial and then shock. She must be holding her breath too because suddenly she hiccups, covering the open mouth with the free hand only to pull it away a moment later.

“Uncle T?”

It’s like someone’s overlapping two rolls of films and for a moment it’s four years old Tracey standing at the trailer park in North Yankton all over again. It stings his chest, it feels good and bad all at once. Trevor smiles, she squeals as high pitched and excited as ever while running towards him. For the second time and just like their first time meeting, Tracey doesn’t care about his smell, the state of his dirty clothes, the appearance of his face, the dry blood under his fingernails. Tracey hugs him. Tracey hugs him and once again, Trevor believes everything will be fine.

“Is that really you? Please say it is, this will be really awkward if you’re just a random dude.”

Trevor chuckles for the first time since a bee hidden inside a can stung Ron’s mouth on its way down the throat causing him to speak all sorts of weird for a week. The girl chuckles too, head on his chest and arms still holding him. He let the chin rest on top of her head and felt himself relaxing. She smells of sunscreen and toothpaste.

“I’ve missed you so fucking much, polkaroo.”

“Oh my God, it's really you! Oh my God, oh my God!” she hiccups again, squeezes Trevor on a hug so tight it makes one of his still-healing ribs hurt. “I’ve missed you s-so much!”

“I thought… I thought you’d be angry at me. I thought you'd be thinking I abandoned you and your brother. I…” he holds her shoulders to pull away and look her in the eyes. “Trace,  _ I didn’t _ . Not because I wanted to. I didn’t forget you, alright? I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. I’m sorry, I’m so s-”

“I never thought that uncle T. I know you would never do that. I-I’m not sure about what happened,” she frowns, shakes the head. “But you’re here and right now that’s all that matters. I haven’t been so happy in…”

Tracey's thoughts go stray and for a moment Trevor does too. Partly relieved that Tracey had so much faith in him even if he wasn’t deserving of her infinite kindness and partly curious about what she had been told about what happened almost ten years ago. She hiccups again and laughs.

“OMG, look at us… Crying in public is hella embarrassing.”

She dries up the tears and Trevor does the same. He had been so worried about the first ten minutes of meeting Tracey after so long he had not really prepared for the fact she wasn’t a 13 year old anymore. Tracey mindlessly adjusts the swimming suit on her big cleavage, taps at her phone and types on the device with quick thumbs.

“I need to call Jimmy and tell him you’re here! He won’t fucking believe it. Give me one minute!”

The little girl with blond pigtails had grown up to a full adult woman and it pisses him off to think of all the moments of her life he had been stolen off. His jaw clenches so hard it snaps in place.  _ ‘It’s okay’ _ he remembers her words,  _ ‘you’re here now and that’s all that matters’ _ . He would just need to find a way to reconnect with her and would be fine.

“He’s on his way! Do you want to eat something?” she links the arm with him, starts walking towards the restaurants nearby and drops the voice as if talking to herself. “I think it’ll be fine if I eat a Grilled Halibut with Peach and Pepper Salsa… Or maybe we can share a shrimp bucket? It’s  _ so _ good!”

They sit at one of the outside tables and he listens to Tracey talk about what she has been doing, how she’s still not sure about college and have been working on some networking to maybe become famous in the meanwhile. Tracey monologues about understanding it’s a saturated market and seeing it as an advantage since that’s exactly why they’re always looking for new faces. If the opportunity presents itself, well, she’ll take it. She’s young, pretty and sparkling. She’s also really smart and understands business is business, if two people need something the other person has, transactions are only fair, nothing wrong with it. It seems nothing but logical to her to try to make it in Los Santos, the birthplace of the Vinewood film industry. Who knows, she could be an actress, the glamorous, ravishing protagonist of a Vinewood movie!

Besides, it was going pretty well so far… A swimwear photoshoot for a small ad on the back of StarsTalk (the fact the barcode covered her head it’s just a detail), an audition to be part of an episode of Kung Fu Rainbow Force (which she didn’t pass, but got happy to know at least it was for the role of a talking garbage bag monster and not for Talullah’s evil double twin) and well, if everything went alright, in a few weeks, she’ll be auditioning to Fame or Shame.

The girl has such a determinate look on her face while nodding that Trevor stops himself from saying seeking fame was a dumb way of wasting what’s supposed to be the best years of your life. Instead, he hums, scramble his head to try and find a better way to say it. He’s about to give up and tell her the honest truth when Jimmy arrives. Trevor smiles to the realization he’s just as chubby, sweaty and weird he had always been. Only now he seemed to dress and was doing a terrible job at it.

“My favorite uncle!”

Jimmy comes in for a hug but makes it quick and is wrinkling his nose when they part even if he tries very hard to pretend he isn't. Tracey gets as excited as she was before once again.

“He’s alive, Jimmy! Fucking alive!”

“Yeah Trace, I can see that. Did we legit have to meet at the beach?” the boy rolls his eyes, pushes the chair towards the shadow and sits down. “The beach? With my skin?”

“OMG Jimmy, don’t be so soft.”

“Whatever.” he waves the hand to his sister and smiles at Trevor who had been watching the argument, so familiar and so strange from all that slang kids seemed to use these days. “How have you been, Trevor? Chilling, grilling?”

“I haven’t done many barbecues these days, no. I’ve been working a lot so no time to eat. Meth feeds me with all energy I fucking need.”

“Oh. Okay… Cool. Gotta make all that guap, am I right?” Tracey grunts and elbows Jimmy on the ribs, extending the open hand for him to drop a card on it as if that was completely usual for them. “I'm down for the usual.”

“K. Uncle T, it’s really okay for me to order for you?”

“Yeah, I’m not picky..." he shrugs and smiles. "Can’t be worse than this Indian man I had last week in Sandy, right?”

He chuckles and she hums trying to come up to say for a moment. The girl gives up, gets up and goes to the ordering counter queue to explain exactly how she wanted the food for the poor soul that would be unfortunate enough to get her. There are six people in front of her so the two men are left to talk.

Jimmy doesn’t seem to be more on the rails of his life than his sister. In fact, he seemed to be way more lost than she was. From what Trevor could gather, after snarling  _ ‘for the love of good Lord above would you stop talking in Nonsense and keep the conversation in regular English, kiddo?’ _ , was that the only thing Jimmy did all day every day could be resumed in playing video games and eating. He also smokes weed now what, if Trevor didn’t know him any better, would say it's the reason behind his slow pace.

He sighs and smiles, pushing the fat cheeks up to the eyes. “It’s hella… I mean, it’s good, hanging around. It reminds me of the old days.”

“Simpler times.”

“Yep, you were always such a cool uncle…”

“Still am!” Trevor opens the arms, gets the attention of people sitting around and holds the middle finger up to them before leaning against the table to rest the forearms on it. “Ain’t I?”

“Yeah, sure… Cool and kind of creepy.”

There are three people in front of Tracey now. Trevor tries to bite the tongue to keep from talking about the past. He didn’t want their whole rendezvous with the children to be about him, the fake death of their backstabbing sack of shit father or the last depressing directionless nine years of his life. He wanted to know all that was exciting about their new lives! After all, Michael had betrayed him for a better life for his family, didn't he? Trevor was expecting nothing but stories about international trips, preppy skills they acquired from the absolute best out there, the bliss of having a safe, domestic, dreamy house…

To see the two of them were growing so adrift and halfhearted every day despite all that made it even worse for Trevor to swallow the anger.  _ ‘It has to be worthy. It has to be.’ _ he had told Michael on his wedding day,  _ ‘It has been better than being with me.’.  _ Trevor leans back to rest against the chair and starts bobbing the leg up and down, scratches the face again. Jimmy stops staring at the sores above his eyebrow as if he couldn’t see him doing it and turns the eyes the other way.

“All of these years… Did any of you try to look up old uncle T?”

“We… We thought you were dead. I mean,” Jimmy looks around to make sure no one is listening. “that’s what pops told us.”

“Oh.”

“And after what happened to Tracey… We just didn’t talk about it anymore.”

“What happened?”

He sits there and listens to the story of how the 13 years old girl tried to run away to find him, how it had scared all of them. For some reason it makes him feel guilty. It makes him close his hands on fists.

“It was scary, T. She didn’t really talk or eat for a week.” Jimmy sighs, looks around to check if she’s still on queue. “I-I actually found out the truth the next year. I mean, I heard dad talk to the Norton guy from the FIB and after that, it wasn't hard to just piece it all together. I didn’t know how or what had happened, but he said you were dead and then the moving, the new names, the mansion, the Feds at dinner… I knew he had fucked it up.”

Bobbing the leg up and down and opening and closing the fists to dispel some energy would luckily keep him from going crazy near the kids. It takes much of Trevor’s concentration so he just nods in response. Even knowing he couldn’t take it out right there, his hand goes to the glass pipe and squeezes it. Jimmy sighs and continues.

“You were the subject of a nationwide manhunt, didn’t have an address or phone that I could just reach out and… What would happen if I did? I was 12! I didn’t have the answer and couldn’t ask for my lying parents. I couldn’t tell Tracey either, I was too worried. I was scared that could be the final push for something bad happening to her.”

“Final push?” his limbs stop, the blood goes cold. “What do you mean?”

“I caught her throwing up that Christmas that year. She was sobbing, saying things like  _ ‘nobody wants a fat daughter, nobody wants a depressed child, nobody wants to deal with a lost person’ _ .” he shakes the head as if he was trying to shake the memories away. “Then I said to her ‘ _ hey, good thing our parents got two kids, you be good and leave the fat, depressed, lost part to me’ _ . She laughed. I thought it would be okay.”

Jimmy rips the corner of a napkin and rolls it in between his forefinger and thumb to make a tiny ball, frowns deep in concentration. Trevor let the eyes go to Tracey who’s biting the fingernails and running the eyes jumping from picture to picture glowing at the menu display. He blinks once and she’s just 13 again, sitting across him, Jimmy’s only 11. Trevor rubs the eyes and the world shifts back into reality.

“It got better after a few months. Mom managed to convince her to practice some tennis or run at Vespucci beach or use the gym there, they got into zumba for a while and then she got obsessed. She had to train every day, wouldn’t eat a single grape more than what was on the stipulated calories for the day. She literally would go like  _ ‘one carrot equals 27 jumping jacks’ _ during dinners and everything. It was too much. Finally, she saw a doctor for a bit and got better again so-”

The boy shuts up when Tracey approaches the table with the tray and lands it in the middle. She slaps Jimmy’s hand away when he reaches to grab something and puts one plate in front of Trevor. He stares at the grilled fish on the plate. It’s half of the extension of his hand, surrounded by chopped pieces of vegetables. He barely registered what they were talking about as his mind kept running back to what Jimmy was just telling him about and making his insides turn uncomfortably.

“Fuck!” Tracey curses and covers the mouth with a hand, frowns at the drink she had just sipped. “I told them I wanted a fucking straw! Fucking assholes.”

Jimmy laughs with a mouthful. “Who’s being soft now?”

“Shut your fucking mouth, noob.”

She gets up again while making sure to scratch the chair against the floor, basically stomps back to the queue to reclaim the forgotten straw. 

“This goddamn city is poison!” Trevor punches the table making the pile of tiny napkin balls Jimmy had been accumulating all scatter, some roll to the floor. The boy smiles awkwardly at the people staring. “Ten years in the sun has been rotting you guys from the inside!”

“It’s a confusing place to grow up, especially if you are a girl, but I think she pressures herself too much to get attention."

“So you don’t think she had her silly and naïve little head filled with crap by these fucking vultures? She’s easy to pray to in this environment. This fucking city feeds of girls like her!”

“Yeah, for sure, the pressure of our society to have young influenceable minds trying to reach untenable aesthetic beauty standards from Vinewood is real as fuck. But I-I don’t know. I think Tracey’s too lonely. She doesn’t have real friends, just a few hot girls who she hangs out with. We tried to make friends after the first year here, but…” he shrugs, flicks the remaining tiny ball far away and tries to follow their movement in the air before falling at the feet of the big trash can next to the pillar. Trevor watches as Tracey seems to get into an argument with one of the employees about the straw. “We just don’t fit in, it’s like if we actually were from a different planet. Born rich kids around here would be like  _ ‘oh wow, it was so fun skiing in St. Moritz during holidays’ _ and we would be thinking like  _ ‘I hate when after the winter is gone in North Yankton it makes all the hidden trash get stuck to the mud once the snow melts’ _ , you know?”

The annoying sound of bicycle bells around the area makes Trevor's leg start bouncing again. Jimmy rakes the rice around on his plate with the fork and shrugs with just one shoulder, takes a sip of his soda to burp loudly. He sighs while poking a shrimp.

“That’s why I stopped trying and got into video gaming. At least when you meet someone on a forum you know you share an interest with them and they won’t judge how weird you’re. I wish she had something like that too.”

“You’re a good brother Jimbo.”

“I don’t know about that. She’ll hate me when she finds out I knew and kept my mouth shut but… Tracey is dad’s little girl. She still has him on an altar, you know that, that’s why the two of you have always been inseparable, right? You have always been the compass helping her navigate the turbulent waters that are loving Michael Townley…”

Trevor’s leg stops suddenly, he frowns and grunts ready to stand up and scream that no, he doesn’t love that dumb fuck, but Jimmy rubs the ear like he does when he’s anxious and looks away. The small familiar gesture grounds him for the moment. The boy’s watching his sister point and roll the eyes, swing a fistful of straws in front of a scrawny guy’s face.

“It’s going to destroy that… Right? When we find out the whole truth? She’ll hate him, won’t she?”

“Look… Fuck your dad and to be honest, fuck your mom too. They probably shouldn’t have had kids because they… We’re trash and we’ll always be trash, but you… Jimmy, you’ve got to be there for her.”

“I try. I mean, I love her, but most of the time we’re just nasty to each other. It really sucks but we can’t help it!”

“That’s not good enough, pal. You got to look after each other.”

The boy nods as his sister hurry back to take a seat with a pleased smile, takes the tiniest sip from the drink through the straw. He shakes her head. "This is the face of a mean girl who just got some poor kid fired over a piece of plastic."

“Shut up, Jimmy. Do you know what I just thought?”

“How the average person farts roughly between 14 to 22 times a day?”

“Ew, no!” Tracey grimaces and punches him hard on the arm. “I know you always wanted to feel special, but at what cost, huh?”

He mumbles a  _ ‘shuf uf’ _ with a mouthful of shrimp that she ignores while taking another sip. Trevor chews his food and appreciates them in silence.

“Like I was saying, I was thinking and Jimmy, you need to have kids.”

The boy coughs and spits half of the food back out causing people to look at them again. The stares last until Trevor stares back at them while holding the silverware in his hands in a menacing way. Jimmy coughs and clears his throat.

“What was that about kids?”

“When you have kids I’ll be Auntie T! This needs to happen.”

“Ha, I bet my kids will be more like Anti-T,” he chuckles and winks. “Get it?”

“Yeah..." she forces a sarcastic smile just like her father and Trevor has to look away for a second. "Forget what I said, you’re stupid and shouldn’t reproduce even if you could get your tiny little penis wet.”

"You fucking..." Jimmy looks at Trevor with widened eyes and points at her to prove she’s the one starting the fight and not him. He shakes the head and gives in with a hum. "See?"

“Okay, kids, no dick shaming during lunch. It doesn’t matter the size of the cock but the way you prepare it and how good it tastes when you eat it, remember that.”

“Damn, that's some wise words, T... But I’ll have you know Tracey, that I'm fine with being just slightly below average.”

“You did get dad’s denial genes didn’t you, Jimmy?”

The boy grunts and gulps down half of his drink to keep from bickering back. Tracey smiles victoriously once more.

“Uncle T, do you… Like, do you really mean that thing about eating a dude? I mean, meat is meat, right?” she pokes her food with the fork, licks the lips. “I guess the problem with cannibalism would be getting the consent of the person to eat them? And maybe getting the piece itself after? But hey, we don’t ask cows before killing and chopping them either so… Uhm, do you at least cook them?”

“Tracey, dude…” Jimmy censors her with a frown, chews on his food. “That’s gross!”

“Yeah… First talking about your sad sexless life and now this, I think I made myself sick.” The girl pushes the fish to her brother’s plate and eats the vegetable cubes remaining. “So, you won’t believe all the things I have to tell you, uncle T!”

Trevor was slightly shaking already and so tense from being overwhelmed with the memories, emotions and feelings from their meeting he can’t wait until he’s alone to smoke his speed and feel numb for a while. However, she’s so excited to talk about everything that Trevor barely cares about how unimportant most of them are.

Tracey goes over her plans of auditioning for Fame or Shame again with more detail and about hoping to be one of the finalists to perform a song she had written herself.  _ ‘It’s about dad,’ _ she shrugs and sips another small gulp from the liquid,  _ ‘maybe when I appear on TV he’ll actually see me’ _ . Jimmy laughs, says it’s silly but Trevor understands that more than he could explain, the aching urge for being seen by Michael Townley. Trevor also understands what Jimmy meant about how he had only kept their father’s secret so his sister could hold onto her faith in him a bit longer, the same faith he once had.

When they part later, he wishes her good luck and hopes silently that even if he was left stranded on that sea many years ago, the girl can find a way to make a safe harbor for herself while being engulfed by the treacherous riptides she keeps sailing by loving Michael.


	14. Tracey, august 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw - mention of past suicide attempt

She doesn’t hear it at first, she’s too focused on running the fingertips through the hair and feels the scalp while singing the lyrics of the last Miley Cyrus song to herself and considering sneaking out to Morningwood’s Dickies Bagels. Rachel had told her during their dance class how the place is selling boxes with 15 now. Maybe she could park behind the paw shop and-

The girl sees the image of her brother waving the arms as if the house was in flames on the reflection of her vanity mirror and jumps on her seat. Jimmy has wide eyes and is mouthing words she can’t hear. “What are you doing in my room, you weirdo?!”

Tracey hurries to put the hair up in a bum before turning to face him properly, pulling the earphones out of the ears mid chorus.

“-ing animal downstairs.”

“What?” she repeats and squinted her eyes as if that would make her hear better than before. “Speak up, James!”

“Oh my God, you really are just like pop’s aren’t you?” The panic he was displaying is replaced by annoyance for a moment as he rolls his eyes. “ _ I said _ that I think there’s a dying animal downstairs.”

The girl’s about to ask what had he laced his weed with this time when he widened his eyes again, pointing at the general direction of the stairs. She pauses the song on her iFruit.

“Did you hear it?”

It happens again after a second and she hears it. More than that, she  _ recognizes _ .

The girl stands up and doesn’t even bother going around the bed, walks through it hopping up and down the mattress to carefully sneak to the bottom of the stairs ignoring Jimmy whines and pleads for her to be careful. Despite the complaining, she can feel him close behind her with a bong in hand as a weapon and is secretly glad it’s dark so he can’t see the tiny smile on her lips.

The living room lights are on so they hide at the entry hall and peak at the passage arc to try to find the source of the noise. Just like she expected, just like she remembered, there it was. It makes her grin so wide she doesn’t even care about the sting sensation of the latest blister on the inside part of her mouth. Jimmy let the hands fall down slowly, crooks the head.

“Is that… Is dad, like, laughing? Does he even know how to do that?”

Tracey lands a single firm punch at his arm to shush him and rest the cheek against the wall to listen to the strangely comforting sound. She watches him taking a big sip of the amber liquid in his glass and leaning back to the couch, arm resting at the top of the backrest and cigarette rolling between the fingers.

“That bar in San Fierro we went to for Lester's birthday,” Trevor clicks the tongue on the roof of his mouth a couple of times. “I think it was 1993?”

“Where he got so drunk that he decided to take over the karaoke…”

“But then he only knew one song…”

“Linger by The Cranberries, yes. And you went to the stage and stole the microphone ruining everybody’s night, made things all weird as always.”

“I was singing my  _ feelings _ ! And you loved it because you’re a selfish, smug, prideful fat fucker like you always have been.”

“Alright kids, relax.” Amanda shushes them in that motherly way she used on Tracey and Jimmy when they were arguing, she giggles. “Remember the day that girl snatched Lester glasses off with her ass?”

“Yes! It was, uhm…” Trevor’s voice gets closer and he appears in Tracey's view with a bottle at hands to sit on the couch too, he seems less jittery than she remembers seeing since he came back. “Bertha, I believe?”

“No, no. Busty Bertha’s the one who came back too early to the club and squirted breast milk at that guy who was with you sometimes… Ben, or something? Whatever. The ass girl was Misty.”

Amanda hiccups in between laughs. Tracey and Jimmy exchange a look. Now that’s something she felt they should be worried about… Both of their parents in a room with Trevor Philips and  _ laughing _ instead of shouting? Were they really in a room for more than two minutes that remained clear of any signs of broken glass, blood, or fire? That had to be a fucking fever dream.

‘ _ Excuse me…’ _ Tracey mouths to her brother  _ ‘what the fuck?’ _ . He brings the joined fingers of both hands to the temple and lets them part while pulling it away to gesture a mind-blowing expression. There are small thuds on the living room floor as if someone was jumping, she figures it’s Amanda since she’s out of sight.

“Shit, I can’t remember the steps anymore,” she states sounding upset. “Goddamnit.”

“It’s okay babe, aging wasn’t kind to any of us.” Michael chuckles, puffs the cigarette and the way he winks makes Tracey sure her mom is flipping him off. Trevor takes a sip from the bottle and sinks into the seat.

“There’s a spot for Wednesdays at the VU if you’d like to relive some of the old days… In my establishment, we support more mature woman w-”

“Of course it does…” Michael says to the glass and doesn’t care he’s ignored. "Not surprised."

“-’s unsatisfied, has the body and mind of a girl half their age… A mature woman in her sexual prime, you know? A foxy mama.”

Jimmy seems to be about to throw up inside his bong, Tracey considers doing it herself. Being an outsider of whatever weird inside joke that was made the whole thing more unsettling that it needed to be. The angry grunt sound from their mom that echoes through the room it’s familiar enough to ease the weak nausea.

“Humanity, in all these years of existence, hasn't been able to come up with a word that’s strong enough to convey how much I  _ absolutely _ despise you with every fiber of my body, Philips.”

He laughs and dodges a cushion that flies his way, takes another sip of the beer as the thing hits the bookshelf and plops on the floor. Tracey and Jimmy hide when Michael shifts to look back, checking for damage. He mumbles, probably annoyed for having his material items endangered by the quarrel. Peaking at the corner again, the siblings can see him flick the ashes in the ashtray before taking another drag.

“Okay Johnny and Gilda, let’s calm down.”

Trevor looks at him and then back to Amanda, shaking his head for a moment in a mournful way. Then, he stretches and sighs dramatically. They can hear their mom drum the nails against the glass before putting down against a surface, probably the fireplace.

“I hate you, Trevor,” she says in a way that’s less slurred than before as if she was talking to an audience.

“Hate is a very exciting emotion, haven’t you noticed?” he answers in the same way, voice clear and deep. “Very exciting.”

“Funny…” Michael nods and forces a smile. “Real cute. I love when you two drop the bickering and work together to make fun of my miserable life.”

Oh, it was another movie line, Tracey realizes. Amanda laughs while Trevor grimaces and makes a funny voice to mock Michael, by the noise she must pour more alcohol into the glass.

“Don’t mind him, Trevor…” she hums against the border of the drink before taking a sip. “He’s always like this when he hasn't had enough television.”

“The Champagne Murders, nice one.”

“Thanks...”

“Fuck you guys,” Michael finishes off his drink and fills his glass back all the way up too. “It’s a great movie.”

Trevor reaches to touch his shoulder but stops midway and brings the elbow up to the backrest, resting the temple against the closed fist. Amanda walks to the armchair and drops the body on it, sighs.

“Anyway… Fuck you, Trevor. I would destroy those girls.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have a pole around here.”

“God forbid if my husband was the only one who had to drop his beloved lifestyle for the sake of the family.” she chuckles, swings the index finger from side to side. “No, I haven’t danced since Linton.”

“I’m sure it was a true sacrifice for you, babe," Michael smiles with little to no sincerity. "To stop shaking your tits to a crowd full of weirdos and twirl around all night.”

Tracey watches her mom lean forward to look better at her husband ready to snap, but Trevor’s the one who speaks up first.

“Wow Michael! You hypocrite piece of turd.” he turns to face Amanda with a hand over the chest. “Personally, I miss seeing you shake it.”

She hums, leans back again. “I’m sure you do, Trevor.”

“Look, I have seen many strippers in my life…”

“I’m sure of that too.”

“… And not many of them were as good as you. That one stage dance you had-”

“Pour Some Sugar On Me?” Trevor nods and blows a chef kiss in the air as an answer. She sighs again. “Yeah, that was my song.”

“I know it’s hard for you to accept my compliment just as much it is for me to compliment you, but hey, unlike your husband I’m not going to sit here and say it was just shaking tits…” he looks at Michael in time to see him wave a hand around and crush the cigarette bud at the ashtray, looks back at her. “That was quality artistic shit, acrobatic and pretty badass.”

“Thanks, Trevor…” the siblings exchange another confused look as she finishes the drink. “But go fuck yourself, alright? Shut up.”

“Yeah T, you better stop being nice or she will realize that she picked the wrong guy to marry back in the days.”

“Bold of you to assume that it isn’t a recurring thought on my mind in the past ten years, honey.”

This time even Michael joins the others and laughs before taking a sip. Tracey can see her mom move to the edge of the seat, rest the elbow at the knee and the chin on the palm of the hand.

“You, my darling…” she shakes the head slowly, eyes fixated at the bottom of the vase plant in the corner. “You’re a lucky guy for having both of us too in love with you…”

The silence is so loud Tracey thinks they’ll hear Jimmy loud breathing and gestures for him to close the mouth. Amanda hiccups.

“Or maybe not. I mean, have you ever thought how different this would have been if we weren’t all so selfish and could just... Share?”

She looks at him but Michael, like always, pretends he didn’t hear a word. Trevor’s very still. The woman puts the glass down so abruptly that it makes a loud thud against the surface, moves the hands to the sides of the head to massage the temples.

“I’m drunk,” she states the obvious, stands up and almost falls back down. “Fuck you guys.”

“Goodnight, babe. You need help?”

She flips Michael off and stumbles until the hand reaches the wall and serves as a reference. Jimmy grabs Tracey by the arm and changes their hiding spot so when their mom finds her way to the stairs, she doesn’t notice them there. They wait as she stops in the middle and hiccups.

“Don’t think about it, don’t think about it, fuck,” Amanda whispers, hiccups once more. “Too late. I’m thinking about it. Oh, I’m really thinking about it.”

The siblings hear her arrive safely upstairs with only another pit stop to hiccup. In a few minutes the door to their parent's bedroom opens, closes and locks. When the girl looks at Jimmy he's hugging the bong and grimacing, probably from hearing more than he’s comfortable hearing about their mom. Tracey would rather not hear any details of her sexual fantasies, especially now that apparently involved both their dad and uncle T, but unlike her brother who seemed to ignore this side of her, she knew their mother was someone who had always loved expressing her sensuality and femininity. In a way and despite all the arguments they had all the time, Tracey admires that on her, how she was still a woman and not just a mom.

There are some movements in the kitchen. The opening and closing sounds of the fridge indicate it was time for the cheap beer rounds. After a moment the noise of the bottles clinking together got further away telling them how whoever that was, it had already made their way back to the couch.

She gives a minute longer, hearing the caps rolling and stopping at the floor and then knocks the elbow on Jimmy’s, nodding to the kitchen. He shakes the head, points the index finger up with wide eyes and thin lips. It’s Tracey’s turn to shake the head. That was nothing really enlightening in that conversation so far. There were still so many questions unanswered that she wanted answers for.

He gives in, slumping the shoulders and tilting the head behind until she elbows him again. They slide quietly to the other room and hide behind the pillar to watch Trevor taking a sip of beer with a deck in the space in between him and Michael.

“Up for a game?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Kings.”

“Kings… You know there’s just us here, right? We can’t ask your imaginary friends and fellow demons to play with us.”

“Stop fucking complaining so much!” Trevor snarls and he chuckles, shifts to face him and watch the cards being shuffled against the seat. “Go ahead, the fat guy starts.”

“Fuck off.” Michael sips his beer while hovering the hand over the cards to pick one and flip it. “Four.” 

Both of them reach for the floor on a quick movement that makes Tracey jump in place and Jimmy has to grab a vase to stabilize it before it shatters on the ground. When they take a peak again Michael is drying the hand on the already ruined and damp shorts he’s wearing in between curses. He takes a look at the bottle and shakes some droplets of beer away, finishing what’s left inside in one swing.

“Fuckin’ A.”

“What’s wrong, cowboy? You’re not so fast anymore, eh?” Trevor teases poking him in the stomach before having the hand slapped away. “All this adipose tissue… You did turn soft, after all.”

Michael ignores him, opens another beer while pointing to the deck. Trevor hums and passes the index and thumb down the horseshoe mustache before pulling one.

“Eight! Easy…”

He holds the bottle to Michael to click with him before both of them take a sip. It’s Michael’s turn again. “Queen.”

“Do you regret it?” Trevor wasted no time before asking.

Tracey watches her father bite the inside of the cheeks while looking at some point of the carpet without really seeing it. The other man waits, drinks in silence.

“Are you sure you wanna hear the answer, T?”

“Of course I’m sure I wanna hear the answer, Mikey. I  _ asked _ .” he raises the voice slightly, sounds as if he was talking in between teeth. “Do you fucking regret what you’ve done?”

“If I regret saving my family? No. Of course, I don’t.”

With a frown face, Tracey looks at her brother to see what was on his mind, but Jimmy just shrugs. Trevor holds Michael’s bottle by the bottom to stop it from going to his lips.

“I was the one asking, you don’t need to drink.”

“Except that I do.”

He pulls it off the other's grip and gulps it down as if there was something stuck on his throat. Trevor pulls a card.

“Nine, oh no... Rhymes?” Michael nods and he leans to the backrest of the couch, scratches the face for a moment before sitting up again, hitting the knee with a palm. “I wanna be your vacuum cleaner breathing in your dust. I wanna be your Ford Cortina, I will never rust. If you like your coffee hot, let me be your coffee pot. You call the shots, I- _ What _ ? Why are you laughing?”

Michael’s giving one of those real laughs again and this time both Tracey and Jimmy are laughing too, doing their best to keep from making any noises. Trevor reaches out to poke Michael again, clearly annoyed and impatient to hear what was so funny while asking  _ 'whatwhatwhatwhatwhatwhat'  _ nonstop.

“You’re such a hipster, T.”

“Not this again...” he presses the side of the bottle against the space in between his closed eyes for a moment and then points the neck of it towards Michael. “I abhor hipsters! I fucking hate them!”

“Hipster denial at its finest, look at you…”

Trevor grunts from a place so deep inside his chest his whole body vibrates, it makes some of the beer spills all over his jeans. Tracey can swear it would be totally possible to see the smug smile at her dad’s lips from the fucking space.

“Easy bud, you’ll need a new pair of skinny jeans if you ruin this one. Maybe we should switch your beer for a skinny latte, huh?”

“You’re trying to wind me up talking all this bullshit. I don’t know what gave you this idea, but if you keep trying me, I’ll break this bottle and use it to scoop it out of your head!”

“It’s not my fault, you make it too easy sometimes. You were just proclaiming the current hipster anthem song of the year…”

“First of all, that was poetry! Second, it’s from 1982. And third, for someone who likes assuming things, you know a lot about what’s new for the hipsters.”

“I have a daughter.”

“Excuses.” Trevor finishes his beer and extends the open hand towards Michael only to receive another bottle. “Go on.”

Another card is pulled. He holds it up, another queen.

“Question, question, question...” for a long moment Michael spaces out again. He looks around, avoiding Trevor at all costs until he whistles. “Earth to Townley?”

“De Santa.” 

“Whatever! Come on, ask me aaaaanything, sugar tits.”

He nurses the beer for a second longer and cleans the throat.

“Have you been to the Vinewood sign yet? Or the Observatory? It’s really nice…” there’s a long pause of silence where Trevor just stares at him. “What?”

“That’s what you wanted to ask me? Really? You’re gone for ten years and this is what you want to ask?”

“I don’t want to talk about the past.”

“Typical. You don’t want to so you think we don’t need to, right? Fuck me.”

“T… How many times will I have to say this? I was in a tough situation. I fucked up and I’m sorry, but m-”

“Your family. I heard it all the other times too.”

As Trevor drinks, Tracey can see her dad’s knuckles turning white around the bottle. He’s so tense he misses when the other pulls another card. Michael reaches for it on the floor where it had already been tossed at.

“10.”

“Ca-te-gories.” Trevor says in a singing voice and then proceeds to do exaggerated gestures while counting on the fingers. “A couple of car crashes, one failed hanging, jumping and drowning in the same day… Poison, but only from CO2. A few overdoses, one electrocution… Yeah, put an ax into a power cable. Almost worked.”

“Jesus, T… Just... Shut the fuck up. I’m serious. Don’t-”

Michael’s so serious, jaw so tight that Trevor doesn’t push him any further. He leans back and waits until their father draws a card. Tracey can’t see what it is, but both of them take a sip in silence. It’s Trevor’s turn again and Michael would have missed for sure this time if it wasn't for his excited jump that makes half of the deck fall at the carpet.

“Ace!”

“Fuck.”

Trevor chugs his beer and Michael hurries to catch up as they race to finish the two remaining bottles at their feet that hadn’t been open yet. Tracey shakes the head to the scene.  _ ‘Fucking savages’ _ she thinks to herself despite smiling with affection from her hiding spot,  _ ‘I really missed this’ _ . Her dad drops the bottle on the floor for it to roll all the way to the fireplace and raise the arms up in victory even though Trevor isn’t more than a second behind.

“Fuck yeah, baby!”

“I’ll give you this one, Mikey.”

“I’ve been training ten years for this moment. This right here, beating you up at King’s was why I became an alcoholic.”

“Oh, sure,” Trevor burps and kicks his shin with the tip of the boots. “Blame me for another one of your problems, why not.”

“Was it my turn or yours?”

“Fuck it, I go.” burping once again, Trevor reaches to the remaining cards at the seat in between the two of them and pulls one. “King.”

“Alright, okay… What’s your rule?”

Michael puts a cigarette in the lips and flicks the lighter, drags in a couple of times until the end starts burning and leans to the backrest. Trevor watches him silently as he does all the ritual that looks so fascinating despite being a thing as silly as lighting a fucking cigarette, despite being something he probably saw him doing a million of times. Tracey recognizes that look of adoration, it’s similar to the one she has when looking at him too.

When Trevor speaks it’s so soft she almost misses.

“Don’t die on me again.”

The silence stretches once more until Michael blows the smoke, he chuckles. She feels something close around her arm and looks down to notice it’s Jimmy’s fingers. When their eyes meet, he points to the stairs. When she shakes the head no, he nods his head yes.  _ ‘Let’s go Trace,’ _ the boy mouths,  _ ‘it’s enough’ _ .

“You know,” their dad says in the living room, his voice is softer than Tracey has heard in… God,  _ how long? _ Jimmy tries to pull her by the arm so they can leave and fails to make her move more than a few inches. “I think there's a very small number of times you can pull that trick before getting too predictable, pal. However, like you love to point out, I’m not getting any younger over here and definitely not any thinner so I’ll most likely fail you on it again one day you know…”

“You can’t.” Trevor snarls, pokes Michael in the chest with every phrase. “I have the card, I make the rules. The rule is you don’t die on me ever again. Fake or real, I don’t care, you just don’t die.”

Michael sighs, takes a long puff from the cigarette and runs his hand through the hair. Jimmy tugs Tracey by the wrist and this time the girls allow him to pull her behind. She sneaks behind him back to the entry hall without making any noise.

“T… I don’t think I can ever… Promise you anything. But hey, I heard that snakes can live 30 years so at least I’m already exceeding the expectations for my kind.”

“I fucking hate you so much...”

Trevor’s voice is a whisper from where she’s behind her brother, but Tracey swears she can hear him smiling. The faint sound of her father's laugh echoes on the stairs.

“You wish, T. You wish.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it's the original lyrics of John Cooper Clarke's poem "I Wanna Be Yours" from 83/84  
> http://www.cyberspike.com/clarke/yours.html


	15. Tracey, august 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw - eating disorder.
> 
> while I was writing this story I realized that if I wanted to talk about Tracey as a complex, multi-dimensional character I couldn't ignore her eating disorder. I don't think that would be fair. I didn't want to diagnose her either so I did my research and heard from people who battle with ED to come up with a version of how she could experience her own battle in the universe I created here. finding the balance between not completely brushing past the issue and not pretending I know what it feels like is difficult, but I've tried with nothing but respect. still, if you read this and find that something was harmful in any way, please let me know so I can learn about being more tactful and better as a human being in general. thank you.

Overthinking. Jimmy had said she was just overthinking about what they had heard from the conversation between Trevor and their dad during that drinking game.  _ ‘It’s probably just an inside joke,’ _ he had said without taking the eyes off his stupid video game,  _ ‘old people are needy, they love to joke about dying to get some attention.’ _ .

Tracey tries to spit the sour taste from her mouth inside the toilet bowl and ignore the burning ache in her stomach and throat caused by acid and guilt. She had been there for a while, should be cleaning the mess she made, but just allows herself to let the shoulder rest against the wall for a moment and run the clean fingertip of a trembling hand at the crack between two tiles that are near.

That didn’t sound like a joke, sounded like a secret, sounded like lies. The only thing keeping her from digging up for more of what had happened in North Yankton for all those years had always been how certain Tracey was in her heart that she wouldn’t be able to handle the details of uncle’s T death. Every time her memories went back to the last months in their old place and old life during nightmares or daydreams, it was like she couldn’t breathe. She could feel her mind spiraling down with no control, leaking to the drain that was the hole that day had poked through her heart and then… Tracey would be outside her own body looking at herself again. Unresponsive. Hollow.

So Tracey kept the mouth shut at first. New last names? Alright. Framed stock images of an elderly couple found on the internet around the house she was supposed to say it’s her grandparents? Okay. She wasn’t supposed to mention anything from the last 13 years of life that would remotely suggest her father was involved in criminal activities to anyone? Fine. Whatever. She doesn’t ask, doesn’t care. After that, she keeps her mouth open. If she talks all the time, people won’t ask many questions about things she can’t talk about and maybe they'll be her friends. If she talks all the time then maybe mom will be distracted by it and stop screaming at dad so he can drop the bottle and be present for at least ten minutes. If she talks a lot, maybe dad will listen.

She learns to control what she can. She tries, at least. It’s hard to find something that could possibly fill up the void. It’s hard to figure out the limits by herself. How much it’s too much? How much it’s too little? How short should it be? Is this how this should feel? It’s so hard to know.

And it never stopped hurting. Not one year into the sunny Los Santos and rich lifestyle, not two years into a nice school and popular friends, not three years into material things and more material things. No, losing uncle T had always been a memory too painful to revisit.

Except that now things had changed. He wasn’t dead.  _ He never was _ . Now that the thrill of finding out he’s alive is finally wearing off, Tracey’s angry. She had been lied to for ten years. The unknown reason scares her but also lights a spark of curiosity she can’t put out.

There are three knocks on the door.

“I-I’m coming!” She jumps up and unrolls a bunch of toilet paper to clean the seat. “Just a second!”

“Tracey! Honey, are you…”

“One second mom, geez!”

She downs the lid and flushes, double-takes everything to see if there’s something missing and moves to the sink to wash her mouth and hands. The door swings open as she turns the sink on.

“Mom!”

“Sweetie…” Amanda looks around and steps inside, closing the door behind her. “Were you…”

Tracey feels the blood draining out of her face, the palpitations and the heartburn are a painful reminder. She snorts in the best indifferent way she can and turns around to put the hands under the running water. “Mom, please… Don’t be silly.”

“Darling, is just… Tracey, are you pregnant? It’s from that hobo boy, Gary?”

“What?” she turns the water off and looks at her mom through the mirror. “Are you insane?”

“The crying fits out of nowhere in the last week, the other morning I thought I’ve heard-”

“I had just eaten something funny… And this has nothing to do with Gary! We broke up, alright?”

“Oh God, he left you because you’re pregnant, didn’t he?" the woman crossed her arms in front of the chest with a frown. "That scrum bag…”

“Mom! I’m not fucking pregnant, what the fuck!”

“Tracey, you stopped going to exercise with me and practicing tennis, it might be fatigue, you had a headache on Tuesday and I’ve noticed that you haven’t got your period yet.”

“ _ Mom! _ " the girl widened her eyes and stomped in place. Amanda uncrosses the arms and shrugs as if she didn't think that there was anything wrong with knowing that. "How the fuck would you know that?”

“We’re girls! We have always been synced up and asked each other for tampons because we can’t ever remember buying new packs before the next cycle! You haven’t asked for any s-”

“That’s because I got some from Maisy? It’s in my purse. And the fact you pay deep attention to my menstrual cycle is really creepy, invasive and kinda gross so I would like you to stop.”

“Sweetie, but…”

“I just ate something funny, the headache was just a headache and tennis just isn’t my thing. Goddammit, mom!” Tracey slides the rings back to the fingers and turns around to look at her, this time she's the one to cross the arms in front of the chest with a deep frown. “I know you and dad set terrible examples when it comes to honesty for us, but that’s… Wow. No fucking faith, huh?”

“I just…”

"No, mom! I'm done with this conversation."

Amanda tries to crack some of her fingers to relieve some stress, opens the mouth and closes again. She settles for a nod. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll… Leave.”

Tracey let her mother wrap the arms around her on a quick hug before leaving the bathroom and closing the door. Her first thought is never to use that bathroom ever again. The second is just how much she’s her parent's daughter, after all, burying secrets under a pile of lies. She brushes her teeth carefully and avoids the mirror.

The noise downstairs is an indicator that Amanda was opening the main door to greet the tennis coach for a training session or so Tracey hoped. She picks up the phone to see if there are any texts from Gary but finds none, checks the time and calculates. Maybe it would be okay to go out with her girls for a movie, distracting her mind… It would be dark so nobody would pay attention to her, she could have some popcorn. Kelsey had been talking nonstop about how hot Chris Hemsworth was in the last Thor movie, as if he wasn’t hot in any other movie, it could be worth a try. Except if Hannah was there because Hannah always wanted to go eat at The Pink Sandwich after. Tracey remembers how the girl once pointed out the way she had arranged the food on the plate and made everyone giggle and-

She gives up, puts the phone back on the pocket of her jeans. Her eyes go to her parent's bedroom door and she wonders… With the hand at the doorknob, she pushes it open. It clicks closed behind her and Tracey starts looking around for something. It has to be something, anything.

She starts by the room drawers and finds nothing useful. There’s a bunch of beauty magazines, medicines, random papers with numbers of doctors, some receipts of parking lots, broken glasses, a vibrator. She closes the drawer. The closet takes longer to look through and Tracey speeds through the clothes without being completely careless so she won’t miss anything. On the top shelf, there’s a few boxes she can’t reach but the dirty clothes basket has just enough height that allows her to level eyes with it. Curiously, the two ones in the front are empty. Tracey frowns to nothing but the few spiderwebs she finds inside even and all the sides of it. Her eyes fall on a third box.

This one has a tan color, not bigger than a shoebox and it’s tucked at the far end of the top shelf. The girl reaches out as much as possible until she feels the fingertips touch the pointy corner of the lid, and manages to pull it closer. It’s dusty and heavier than she expected to be. Despite the tingly feeling of curiosity and mischief, Tracey doesn’t open it right away, hurries to leave everything how it was and sneak back out to her room. She opens it there, after staring at it for a moment from her end of the bed.

That was her dad's secret box. A box with things he didn’t want anyone to see. Tracey sits straight and breathes in, puts the locks of hair behind the ears. Here it goes.

The first thing she notices it’s a gun and all she does is blink at it for a second. Using the sleeve of her jacket, the girl picks it up only to move it out of the way. The rest of the stuff seems to be harmless. There’s an old, yellowish piece of paper where the letters were almost completely gone. Tracey recognizes it’s a movie ticket when bringing it close to the eyes. It reads  _ ‘The Great Waldo Pepper’ _ or at least it looks like it.

There’s a dry flower inside the box too that Tracey brings the palm closer to get a better view. It looks like a daisy but with a black middle and thirteen petals that were yellow once. The next thing is a casino chip and she flips around a couple of times, holds it in her palm wishing those objects could tell them stories as it happened in kid's movies. Unfortunately, the items are almost over, most of the weight turned out to be from the gun. The realization almost makes her close the box again and leave the remaining stuff for the next day. That’s the closest she had ever been to her father’s sentimental side in years or maybe ever, and God, she didn’t want to be over that soon.

But then her eyes fall on a folded square of photographic paper and she reaches for it, opens it and flips it around. It’s a Polaroid picture that reads –  _ july 89, brother.  _ Half of the picture is Michael’s, the person who took it, middle finger. Sitting across him on what looks like some sort of old sort of waffle house kind of place is a young uncle T. Head crooked, scrunched nose and smile so large on the cheeks it looked like it could crack his face in half, the usual chipper energy frozen in time. Tracey brings the photo closer to study it. They were probably what, 2 years older than she was right now? Sun-kissed, vibrant and happy. The contrast with the reality now that 24 years have passed makes her want to cry. To keep from doing it she folds the photo again, reaching for the last two things.

One of them is an old VHS tape with nothing written to indicate what it was about. Tracey gets genuinely surprised it isn’t moldy and makes a mental note to find the VHS player in the attic first thing in the morning. The other item is a postcard that shows the huge statue of a beaver and reads  _ Ludendorff.  _ When she flips it to see the back, it makes her frown.

There’s a map scribbled on the paper, a dot’s behind a wall and another three are close together but further away, one of them has an X on it. At the bottom, she can read the name of what seems to be a motel, room numbers, a set of loose instructions, some dates she can’t pinpoint to anything but was around 2004 Christmas so it matched the time frame. Tracey can feel she’s into something now.

The next day, when she tells Jimmy she wants to go to Ludendorff that weekend he actually presses pause at the game to look at her.

“You went through dad’s top-secret shit, found a random postcard with codified information about this motel location and want to hop on a plane back up North to check it? Do you know what pops used to do for a living? Or does for a living… I don’t even know anymore.”

“Whatever it was to happen at this place, happened nine years ago, James! We need to find out!”

“We need to let go of it!”

“Why?”

“Why is it so important to you to dig this up? What good can it do?” he raises the shoulders to the ears and mimics the movement with the eyebrows before dropping it. “Uncle T is somewhat alive and not that healthy, but still, he and dad are always out and about again making everybody’s life a living hell… Do you know? It’s fine. Why can’t you just-”

“But the lies! The… The secrets, the…”

Jimmy raises the hand to make her stop talking like their mom does sometimes during discussions. She closes the mouth and crosses her arms as she does in those cases too.

“Maybe they had a good reason for it, have you ever thought from this angle?”

“Doesn’t bother you how they told us uncle T was dead and he clearly isn’t? How there’s something they-”

“Oh my God, dude! Haven’t you heard Trevor talking? He eats people, Tracey! He could have, I don’t know, Hansel and Greteled our asses and-”

“Ahm? Are you crazy?”

“Me?  _ You _ are the crazy one, that’s why Gary dumped you!”

“Fuck you James! I fucking hate you!” she grunts annoyed, kicks his chair to the middle of the bedroom so it hits the pile of cans near the speaker system. “You don’t get it, you fucking asshole! I wish I had cracked your head like an egg when we were young!”

She stomps out of the room, makes sure to slam his door closed hard enough for the framed pictures and posters to shake. Jimmy doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get how it feels like she had been stolen of time and happiness and more than just uncle’s T company, she had been stolen of herself too and for what? Why? Just… Why? His tiny, little brain doesn’t get what she  _ needs _ to know.

Tracey orders takeout for herself, pays with some of the last cash she had made at the last photoshoot job and eats alone in her room like always. When the last bite’s down with a sip of the milkshake, she divides all the empty boxes into three plastic bags. Ten minutes later, they’re all thrown in three different neighbor’s trash cans. The girl folds the order receipt and rips it apart in tiny pieces, blowing it away to watch it falling like North Yankton’s snowflakes used to do before walking back home already feeling disgusting.

She notices the house’s empty and doesn't really expect to find any kind of note with explanations about the whereabouts of any of the parents so she takes advantage of it, runs upstairs to grab the VHS player. The girl struggles with it at first, has to look up instructions on the internet, but manages at the end. Tracey’s proudly admiring her handy work with electronic devices when Jimmy screams her name from upstairs.

“ _ What? _ ”

“What do we have to eat? I have a headache!”

Tracey closes the eyes and rests the palm of the hand against the forehead for a moment, breaths in deeply to take the risk of worsening the almost constant sore throat to scream back in a way it could show him how much she was still mad at him. “Do I look like your fucking babysitter, your misogynist jerk?”

“You’re still mad. Got it.”

Great, it worked. Tracey ignores him, mumbling complaints and goes back to the VHS tape, pushes it on the player and sits down on the couch.  _ ‘Please don’t be porn,’ _ she thinks behind the closed eyes,  _ ‘please don’t be porn’ _ . When light flashes behind the eyelids from the screen, she cracks one eye open and then the other and then lets her mouth hanging open.

“JIMMY!”

He stomps heavily across the upper floor and then down the stairs, when his socks slide at the floor the boy shows up in the living room, face flushed and painting. “What? Where is it? Where are they?”

“I have found a tape on dad’s stuff.”

“Oh. Oh no.” he leans forward to put the hands on the knees trying to catch a breath. “Look, I know mom and dad are always saying we need to bond more, but watching porn with you is weird and a step I’m not comfortable taking.”

“Shut up, prick! It’s not porn.”

“A VHS tape inside a box on top of the wardrobe and it isn’t porn?” taking a look at the paused image of blurry scenery he grimaces, sits down next to her. The boy taps the chest over his heart and coughs. “I don’t believe it.”

Tracey puts a cushion on her lap to cover her swollen stomach, presses the play button and watches at the screen that keeps showing lots of green fields, flowers and nothing but the huge open road ahead. Does it move to a campfire? Some kids at some party? It doesn’t have sound and it has that funny hue old tapes always have.

“I didn’t really take you for the type who's into 80's porn. Or 80's… Gay… Porn… Question mark?”

“It’s not porn James! Pay fucking attention!”

“…80's… Gay… Dad porn?” she turns to the side to punch him with all her strength right at the belly when his eyes go wide. “ _ Oh my god. _ It’s not just random dad porn, is dad's porn like, literally dad. Our dad! Look!”

She hurries to look back at the screen where Jimmy's pointing and doesn’t even surprise her how there was nothing sexual happening, the tape only showed two guys playing on arcade machines. And Jimmy said she was the one with overreacting tendencies, huh. At the TV, one of them covers the eyes of the other in the last minute to win the match, the victorious one shows the tongue to the camera before the loser jumps on his back.

“Wow. That’s totally pops. And uncle T.”

“They look so-”

“Young and happy.”

“Yeah… Happy.”

“Damn, is it too fucked up I kinda wish it was porn?”

“Ew, James! It’s our dad!” she pauses the tape to frown at him disturbed. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

“No! Not like  _ that _ ! What the fuck?! What I mean to say it’s that it would be less painful to watch. Looking at them in the glory days and seeing how they’re now? Walking corpses embalmed in booze and meth? It’s sad.”

“It is… Do you think uncle T really eats people?”

“Uhm, yes and no? I don’t put past him, but at the same time he’s living in Sandy Shores. The region’s filled with poverty, desolation, drug addicts, gangs, bigoted rednecks… Imagine being a new guy at a place like this to stay. You have to assert dominance somehow, right?”

“ _ They can’t scare you if you scare them first. _ ”

“Yep. You know that at least part of his personality is just a defense mechanism, right?” she stops staring at the palm of her own hand to see her brother play mindlessly with his silly chain. “The intense flirting with everybody, the loud yelling at people’s face, the wide gestures…”

“I guess so…”

“All warfare is based on deception.” she looks at him with raised eyebrows only to see him smiling, tapping the temple with the index fingertip. “Let that be a lesson to you, little girl.”

“Ew, don’t call me that.”

“Yeah. It was weird. I immediately regretted it.”

“Was that a movie line? The warfare thing?”

“No, I’m not pops! It’s from an actual book. From the same where I got the tattoo line?”

He points at the quote on his right arm and she snorts.

“I always thought that phrase was just a random thing the tattoo place had on display.”

“Well, that’s because you’re an idiot.” he rubs the skin where the words are etched on. “Sun Tzu’s, The Art of War. Remember when I got obsessed with Sailor Moon?”

“And you used to think Asia was a country?”

“I was a small kid, Tracey! I didn’t know that was a bad and dumb thing to say… Geez.”

“Yeah, you also thought Europe was a place in the USA so…”

“Oh my God! I’m just trying to reminisce about our childhood when we were innocent and didn’t hate each other like everybody in this family, okay? Why can't you give me a break?”

“And you call me an idiot...” she whispers and goes unnoticed. Then she rolls her eyes when sees he’s pouting like he’s actually five years old again. “I remember, Jimbo. Dad gave you a world’s atlas like the aloof turd he is.”

They both laugh for a good moment before the boy sighs.

“Typical dad. Trevor actually told me about how each country had their own thing going on, how he really liked Chinese folk art and it was kinda our thing.”

His mind drifts off to a place so personal that she looks away to give him some privacy. Tracey had shared so many things with uncle T that never really took a moment to imagine what he had shared with the boy too. It was a sad realization that he had lost uncle T all those years ago too, that Jimmy also missed him just as much as she did. It makes her upset. Thinking about her baby brother feeling as lost and confused as she was when they moved, thinking about how his grief had been looked over because of hers. It makes her angry. It makes her nibbles the inside part of her cheek.

The sound of the joints of her knuckles cracking wakes both from their daydreams. She stops chewing before it bleeds, sighs and leans back to bring the legs close to the body, checks her phone for texts and only finds a few from the girls she can reply to later with some excuse. After a moment of silence, Jimmy elbows her to catch her attention again.

“I’m sorry about Gary.”

“It’s okay.” she shrugs and lifts the chin trying to look more confident than she feels. “He’ll come around.”

“Yeah… Talking about Gary, uhm, don’t be mad, but…”

“Oh my God Jimmy, what now?”

“I said don’t be mad! I was looking for pills for my headache and found these in your room.”

He holds a small transparent bag with a dozen of yellow pills inside and it makes Tracey feel sick. She snatches it out of his hand and grunts, pointing a finger at his direction. “I’m going to break your fucking fingers if you don’t knock this shit off! I told you not to touch my stuff!”

“I didn’t mean to… Did you get it from Gary, The Hobo?”

“He’s not a hobo, why are you guys always-ugh!”

“Sorry, I thought it was his street name or something… So, what is it?”

“What do you think it is?” she tries, let him come up with something on his own so she can follow along. “You’re the drug dealer of the family, go on, let’s see.”

“Uhm, by the color… Maybe Valium?”

“Only one way to find out… But we’ll share this one so your fat ass doesn't have a heart attack.”

“Okay.”

In the kitchen, she takes one of the pills from the bag, cuts in half and tucks the others inside her bra. Tracey walks back to the living room to drop one half inside her brother’s palm and the other on her tongue. She almost laughs because it works. That dumb ass really believes it’s Valium and expecting to get a trip from it and doesn’t have any idea that all the trip he will be getting are the ones to the bathroom when the laxative works its magic. 

“Now go order something for you to eat and leave me alone.”

He mocks her in a stupid voice before standing up with the phone in his hands to walk around the pool, probably trying to choose what to eat. It leaves her free to rewind a VHS to the beginning to watch the whole thing.

She had never seen not even a picture of her dad when he was young. There were no real family albums that went back to his childhood or teenage years. It’s like they didn’t exist before 2004 and in a fucked up kind of way, they really didn’t, not the De Santa’s at least.

Tracey wondered how many people had seen that. Not the tape itself, but what was on it, the Michael Townley who had been captured there. Maybe nobody other than Trevor Philips, not even her mother. The idea almost makes her give up watching it. Maybe it was too private, intimate, sacred in its own way. However… She needed to know. She needed to see how her dad was before he had turned into the solid rock he’s now so she presses play.

Despite Jimmy jokes, surprisingly and luckily, there wasn’t any porn so far. The closest the tape has of something explicitly scandalous yet was a young Trevor sitting on a single motel bed, wearing a yellow sundress underneath the Denim jacket despite the snow outside. When his eyes meet the camera he grins, blinks in that exaggerated way he always does and slowly spreads the knees apart. It cuts to a shot of Michael laying on a bed, probably the same one judging by the bedsheets. He’s laughing and there are dollar bills flying around everywhere, covering him, the mattress, the floor… Then there’s what looks like Trevor teaching him how to ice skate, he holds Michael's hands as the man wiggles trying to keep on his two feet and fails miserably, stumbling forwards into Trevor’s chest taking him down with him on a tangled mess of limbs. Despite the middle fingers he holds up to the camera when Trevor picks it up from the ice, he’s smiling.

The next scenes are a bunch of small clips of Trevor in a couple of different motel rooms on a couple of different days. In one of them, he’s dancing, in the other, he’s reading a book by the window and in the next one he’s only wearing sweatpants and a bulletproof vest, showing his tongue while holding a rifle. It cuts to Michael sitting on a table with a huge bowl of soup and breadsticks, he has a mouthful and tries to hide it behind one of the hands while the other reaches for the camera lens.

Tracey watches with wide eyes as the TV show Trevor bleaches her dad’s hair, both clearly high out of their minds. Michael has a buzz cut in the next scene, shows up wearing caps for a bunch of others. It starts showing more of the scenery which changes from all the snow to fields and then dry places where the sun seems to be always shining. They appear to be at that place from the Polaroid picture, Trevor sits at the edge of a cliff and let the legs hang out of it without a care in the world, Michael visually curses and complains when he’s standing at the same spot later and Trevor jumps on his back without warning.

There’s this scene where a young Michael holds Trevor by the sides of the face to pull him close and then proceeds to explode on a laughing fit that even without sound, Tracey can hear it. He rests the forehead against the corner of the other's mouth with eyes closed and laughs, laughs, laughs. Trevor laughs too, wraps the arm around him in a hug and forgets he’s filming so the camera pans to film nothing but the clear blue sky.

They’re racing in ATV’s at some dunes or something? A city through a passenger window. Michael in his Aviators, driving with an arm hanging outside the car and a cigarette on his lips, Trevor reaching out to try to squeeze his cheek. The two of them drinking beers at kids's swing, drunkenly trying to play with an old children's playground in unsafe and ridiculous manners. More scenery, green trees, the coast, the ocean. Michael’s dumbstruck face looking at the ocean and then back to Trevor behind the camera, the smile stretching across his face, the mute shout of freedom to the sky.

It ends like that. Or at least it’s the last thing Tracey sees before the TV goes black. She’s ready to curse at her brother and blame him for that when the lights come up and she sees somebody else standing there that makes her blood turn cold.

“Dad…” he doesn’t answer, doesn’t blink, she only knows he’s alive because his chest is rising and falling at a fast pace as he breathes. “Daddy, I… I’m sorry. I just…”

His hands are closed into fists and he rolls the neck. For the first time, Tracey gets scared of the flash in his eyes when it meets hers. “Go to your room.”

“Please dad, I didn’t mean to make you mad, I just wanted to-”

“Tracey!” Michael snaps loudly, his hand is shaking when he rubs the temple. “I don’t wanna hear your bullshit. Go, now.”

Tracey doesn’t go. Despite the fear, despite the hurt, there’s this part of her who just wants to reach for his shoulders and shake them. There’s this part of her that thinks that maybe if she pushes him a bit more he’ll crack and it was going to be okay because she would be there to hold him if he needed. So she stands her ground and raises the chin higher.

“I’m sorry for going through your stuff, but seems like that’s the only way to get answers around here so for once dad,  _ I  _ am the one who doesn’t wanna hear  _ your _ bullshit!”

“Oh, you don’t wanna hear my bullshit? That’s precious. Why don’t you find a job and a place to live then, huh? And make sure it’s a real job this time so I don’t have to save your spoiled ass from any more guys in a meet and greet signings or stupid yachts.”

“They were my friends! Blake is super chill and Footlong was serious, he was going to put me on TV!”

“I’m sure he was… On a fucking porn show! It’s not like he promises that to every fucking little dumb girl he meets if they, in your own words, sort of have sex with him?”

“Dad, I’m not a whore!”

“I’m sure you’re not, you know why Trace? Because at least whores are smart enough to get fucking paid!” he runs the hand through the face on a tired gesture, reaches for the small table to pour himself a full glass. “After everything I’ve done for you and your brother…”

“Like what, dad? Like Ludendorff?” the liquid doesn’t get to touch his lips, the hand holding the drink stops halfway. Their eyes meet again and Tracey pokes one of the healing blisters on her bottom lip with the tongue, tries to ease the tightening sensation on her throat, feels on the verge of a revelation as if she could reach out and hold it. “Or like lying about being dead and turning my life upside down?”

“I protected you!”

“You ruined me! You and your lies and the fact you’re unable to feel anything that isn’t self-loathing!”

“I don’t hear you complaining while living off my money, buying nice clothes, going out partyi-”

“That's because you don’t listen! You hear, but you don’t  _ listen _ ! I’ve been screaming all this time dad, I’ve been howling!” Tracey hiccups, try to stop the tears but they fall faster than she can wipe them. “I didn’t ask for any of this. A-All I ever wanted was for you to at least glance at me and don’t look like all you see it’s fucking regret!”

Michael grips the drink tighter and stares at her. Like always, he doesn’t do anything but that. It makes Tracey cry harder, so hard her shoulders shake and she has to clean the nose at the sleeve of her windbreaker jacket.  _ ‘Why dad,’ _ she tries to ask,  _ ‘what went wrong from those days on the tape to here?’  _ however, the words die on her tongue. 

He takes a long sip and whispers to the cup. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want you to be honest with me!  _ Please _ daddy, p-please! What happened in Ludendor-”

The noise of glass exploding against the kitchen island makes her jump in place, whimpering. Michael squeezes his eyes shut and holds the bridge of his nose, paces around trying to calm his breathing. Jimmy shows up in the living room with wide eyes studying the scene before stepping close to his sister, pulling her gently to stay behind him. It makes their dad send a look his way that Tracey can’t read.

“I-I think it’s best if we all take some time to chill, right? Let’s go Trace, I heard that uhm, overalls are back in fashion, I would love your opinion on if it would go well with my body type.”

He gently guides her away from him and closes to the stairs slowly with both arms around her. They’re two steps up when Michael gets back into their vision looking as lost as someone does when they just woke up in a foreign place.

“Tracey… I’m sorry, I didn’t want to scare you, but this shit… Ludendorff… You wouldn’t understand.” The girl’s drained and has the biggest headache so she doesn’t say anything, just stares back at him and sniffs. “When you get to have kids of your own you’ll find out it-”

“You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll do everything I possibly can to not pass your cursed genes to any child, ever.”

She leaves him with the silence, goes back to her way and hears Jimmy follows close behind. If the situation was any different Tracey would never do that, but in her brother's room, when he fluffs the pillow and taps the side of the bed that is less of a mess, she climbs on the mattress and hugs the legs close to her body.

“Sorry taking so long to go check on you,” he drops the body at the rolling desk chair and spins around twice. “I actually shit my pants.”

Tracey snorts and chuckles as he nods, points to the wet hair.

“No joke! I had to shower to get rid of it. Disgusting. I’ll sue Burger Shot for attempted murder on my asshole.”

“Ew J-Jimmy!” the boy turns on some hip-hop music loud enough to drown any noise coming from their dad outside the room, grabs the bong off the ground and lights it up to take a big hit from it before extending it to her. “You know I hate weed, it makes me hungry.”

“You’re still hiccupping, come on…” she accepts the bong and the lighter, takes a hit and tries to ignore the heartburn. “Go Tracey, go, Tracey, go Tracey.”

The girl coughs, puffing the smoke in between chuckles and handles it back waving the hands to dismiss his excited cheers. She folds the arms on top of the knees to rest the chin on the wrist with a small smile. Jimmy let the head fall behind and pouts to push the smoke towards the ceiling slowly, keep the heels stuck on the floor while pushing the chair from one side to the other, tries to sing along the lyrics and fails.

“Thank you Jimbo.” he turns to look at her with raised eyebrows. “I think you’re the only one in this family that is honest with me, even if it’s about things I don’t need to know about like you still shitting yourself at 20 years old.”

“Uhm, of course, Trace. I got your back.”

She smiles at him and he smiles back as if he was in pain.

“You better not be shitting your pants right now.”

He chuckles, takes the bong to the lips and sighs.

“If I do, you’ll know by the smell.”

As Tracey picks her dry lips feeling the familiar cramps and tries to remember if there was a water bottle on her nightstand that could fill her stomach up enough, she makes a mental note to be a good older sister and not use their shared bathroom, just in case he needed it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you battle with any sort of ED, I hope you find a way to good health as soon as possible. 
> 
> i was going to share some links/numbers for people who might need it, but i really don't wanna give false information so if anyone knows a good, real, place where others can reach out to get help, feel free to share in the comments.


	16. Michael, august/september 2013

Michael fucking hated that, how the fucking speed would fuel the already disturbed mind and push his rampage to a point where Trevor would feel invincible enough to rip a cartel’s boss ear off before kidnapping his wife.

Admittedly, he had done his own fair share of drugs through the years until transitioning to only cocaine and alcohol before sticking to booze. Because of the kids, Michael liked to think, trying very hard to ignore how the decision of dropping the other poppers and club drugs came before that, while he was coming down on a mushroom trip at the beginning of August, 1989.

That fucking mushroom trip where he kissed Trevor on the way back to North Yankton at the end of their vacation and felt all those ridiculous chick-lit clichés. The butterflies in the belly when the lips met, the heart missing a beat once he kissed him back, the shared breath before their heads changed sides so the mouths would slot together perfectly like two pieces of a puzzle in perfect sync. The feeling of blood rushing through the veins, flowers blooming in the chest, angels singing and all that. Not flinching away when Trevor cupped his face softly, sweetly, but leaning into it to cherish the tingling sensation across the path his thumbs drew on his cheeks and feeling no fear, no shame, no guilt just… That ocean peace.

‘ _ Fuck,’ _ he realized simply,  _ ‘This isn’t just happiness, this is love’ _ and then waited for the father-shaped black hole living inside his mind to consume him, wash him on a wave of misery it would swallow him whole. Trevor broke the kiss to rub the nose against his before covering his face and eyelids with pecks and laughs and the only thing he felt was safe so Michael took a moment to cherish the feeling of being alive, happy and just stupidly in love, just for a while, just until the trip wears off, until his eyes close to rest for a couple of hours and before he woke up sick with himself to suppress everything back, to shrug it all off as if the memories were too foggy to make sense. Michael ended up telling Trevor it was just a dream and in a way, it had been.

Ever since that Michael has been following the self prescript recipe of two glasses of whiskey for each big shot of denial. He’s not sure of how’s going, just hopes it’s enough.

Michael also knows he enabled Trevor on his vices for years and many times had zoned out pondering why, too scared of the answer to really pursue it. A little voice on his subconscious always wondered if it wasn't for his selfish fear, wondering if Trevor would have stuck around him if he was sober enough to realize how much Michael had put him through while playing those games with his emotions and feelings, even if he didn't mean to.

One way or another, that was too much.

The first time Trevor tried meth it was somewhere near the border while Michael went back home to Amanda and he traveled north to visit his mom. Michael only found out the next time they met for a job in Columbus. They were making out as soon the motel door closed behind them and Michael's hands were pulling his jacket off when the pipe fell off the pocket to spin around itself on the carpet, he wouldn’t have even noticed if it wasn't for the thing cracking under his boot as Trevor walked them backwards to the bed.

They argued, of course, they were always arguing those days. Trevor tried to convince him how wonderful it was, the empowering feeling, the self-love, self-confidence, the hyper-awareness of everything, the energy, the sexual drive, and the mental clarity… Then he got pissed because Michael was trying to control him, because he could do whatever the fuck he wanted with his life. The best explanation to why he didn’t want to see Trevor getting into it that came from Michael’s mouth was because of the jobs, because of how he needed to be able to trust him and his better judgment if they were going to keep risking their lives side by side.

Michael asked if he wanted to die. Trevor made his way to the bed and laid there with the back to him. Michael remembered thinking he heard him saying  _ ‘so what?’ _ and how the idea sounded so scary that he tried to convince he hadn't heard shit, that was just his imagination.

The next time he caught Trevor was almost too late to stop him. They were at the safe house and he didn’t pay much attention when Trevor walked past him straight to the bathroom after spending twenty minutes on a phone booth across the road. By the look on his face at the car when he had told Michael that he needed to make a call it got clear the issue was, once again, Mrs. Philips.

He didn’t have a pipe in his hands when Michael opened the bathroom door, but a disposable cooker under the flame of a lighter, the left arm already being hugged by a tourniquet just above the joint of his elbow. Michael snapped. Launched himself at him in the blink of an eye, the rubber cord around Trevor’s arm broke in two and the syringe clicked inside the sink when he pushed his body up against the wall.

“Now you’re shooting this shit?”

“Mik-”

Michael pressed the forearm against his throat enough to make him stop talking, the look on his eyes must have translated well the anger inside of because after staring at them, Trevor kept quiet. “You really want to be a slave for this, huh?… Fuck the rest, isn't it? Fuck the plans for the Big One, fuck the partnership, fuck everything. Is that it? Taking another hit of this shit is all that matters for you, is that it?”

Without a warning, Michael let go of him and stepped back. Trevor was catching his breath and coughing when Michael felt his eyes on him through the mirror but ignored it. He kept trying and failing to wrap the broken rubber band around the left arm above the joint until he finally managed it and felt the sting pain of it. Michael grabbed the needle from the sink. Trevor held him back.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? If it’s good enough to make you risk everything, maybe I’m missing out after all. I’m sure it’ll be an eye-opening experience, to be sucked out of life.”

Michael found a vein that was good enough and moved the hand closer, not really sure what would happen if Trevor didn’t stop him because he really didn’t want to go through with it. Luckily, the other held his hand in place before the needle could get too close to the skin.

“Don’t be stupid Townley, let me at least… This dose isn’t for beginners, it can kill yo-”

“ _ So what? _ ”

After holding his stare for a few seconds Trevor snatched the syringe from him and dropped at the toilet, flushing it away. He hugged Michael for a long time and cried and it was quieter than he usually was while crying, Michael only noticed when his palms slide up on his back and felt the slight shaking of his body, the vibration on his chest.

“Please, Mikey… Stay. Please. Don’t leave me. I know I’m not a good man, but p-lease.”

“T…” he moved the fingertips across the hairline at the back of his neck to caress his scalp, twisted some locks around while grabbing a fistful. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise you, but you can’t fucking leave me either, you cunt. Deal?”

“Deal,” he pulled back to nod firmly. “Never.”

Sitting at the couch of his mansion every now and then since that day in Ludendorff, Michael could still hear an echo of his voice screaming  _ ‘ain’t gonna leave you, Mikey’ _ play in repeat in his mind. Sometimes it mixes up with another memory…  _ ‘All you fucking do is hurt him…’ _ he would hear himself saying years ago to Mrs. Philips,  _ ‘one of these days you’ll die, all alone and miserable and he’ll be better without you’, _ then he would gulp the drink down hoping it helped him to forget. It didn’t always work.

When Trevor showed up at his door and the days that followed, Michael recognized the signs of it. It was so easy to see it now, the sunken eyes, the skin rashes, the jaw clenching, the fidgeting, the needle marks… The sight of him like that still makes Michael’s blood boil and that’s why when Trevor stops stealing glances at their hostage in the other room through the half-shut broken door, sitting at his side on the dingy bed to heat up the pipe, he slaps the thing off his hand.

“Have you lost your mind?” His tone is deep and his eyes are wide, eyebrows raised. Michael stares back, doesn’t flinch.

“No, but you’re going to lose your fingers if you touch that shit again while I’m staying here.”

“Who the fuck do you think you’re, huh?”

“I’m the guy who’s going to break them.” he kicks the pipe to hear it rolling somewhere beneath the dusty dresser. “Not so funny when somebody does it to you, is it T?”

“Cigarettes are a poison that doesn’t do shit for you! Meth, on the other hand, enhances my performance in all fronts.”

“Right… I can see how it makes wonders to you and I’m sure it won’t end up killing you at all.”

“Meth  _ saved _ me, Townley.” Trevor snarls in between teeth, pokes him in the chest with the finger. “ _ You _ killed me.”

Michael slams the palms on the tights loudly and covers his eyes with his hands in the process of rubbing his face, stares blankly at the ceiling while he feels Trevor stands up from the mattress to pace around. He grunts like a big, hungry animal locked on the tiny cage that was his awful bedroom.

“After Ludendorff I had nothing! Not money, not friends, not family, not you! I didn’t have a direction or, or… A purpose! I didn’t have a fucking will to live and then meth got back into my life and took all the pain of mourning you away. It replaced it with euphoria. I couldn’t die even if I wanted to! I was able to put my brain to work again, crawl off the hole you left me to die, you treacherous fucking snake!”

Michael rests the elbows on the knees again, swallows the lump of his throat as Trevor ragged breathing fills the room that was starting to seem too small for both of them.  _ ‘Fuck this,’ _ he thinks feeling like he’s losing control of the situation, if he ever had any,  _ ‘this isn’t your fault Michael, if he had died in Ludendorff like he was supposed to then he wouldn’t be in this state right now!’.  _ Looking up at him, he tries again with the ounce of patience that hadn’t run out of him just yet.

“For the last time, T, things weren’t supposed to be that way. Brad got caught, you run away and I barely made it out. The Feds th-”

“When are you going to stop lying, porkchop?”

“I just-”

“I jUsT, i JuSt, I JUsT…” Trevor mimics with a silly voice, steps closer to him. “Why don’t you  _ just _ admit I’m right, huh? You. Left. Me. To. Die!”

“Me? You left me to die!” Michael stands up and steps forward so they’re face to face, the anger making all his muscles tense up. “All that talk about dying by my side was all bullshit too I guess, huh? Because as soon I got shot you fucking ran to save your own ass!”

“Don’t you dare!  _ Don’t you dare _ to twist this and pull this blame on me, you fucking reptilian asshole! You don’t get the right to do that!”

Trevor shouts so loud the entire world seems to hold their breath outside. He puts distance between them again and hits the palm of the hand against the forehead a couple of times while muttering for himself. Michael bites his tongue, ignores the guilt already setting in between his lungs for saying that. It was a sick, selfish thing for being mad at Trevor and the idea he should keep his promise when Michael never did. Still, he raises his chin, he wouldn’t have exploded like that if the other had stopped pushing him. That was his own fault.

“I did what I had to do to survive,” Michael repeats trying to convince both of them. “That’s all.”

Trevor grabs the keys to his truck on top of the bed and pats the pocket he always kept drugs on back in the day, finds a bag with crystal rocks and swings in front of the other man's face. “So did I.”

The flimsy door almost gives in and breaks when Trevor storms through it and out of the trailer leaving Michael to punch the wardrobe door to release some stress before joining the hostage in the other room. The only way she hadn't heard everything was if she was completely incapable of hearing, giving the fact the place was as small as a sardine's can, lacked properly functioning doors and both men hadn’t really kept the voice down either.

“Are you okay Mrs. Madrazo?” he tries to be as soft as possible.

The woman stops staring at the dirty dishes to look at Michael, blinks a couple of times as if she had just woke up from a daydream and then waves the hands that were still sticky from the tape. “Oh, I’m fine.”

“Here,” he hurries to the sink, soaks the cleanest cloth he finds in water and handles it. “Did he hurt you?”

“Not at all. Trevor’s an honest, sweet man.”

“Yeah, right… The sweetest.”

“He was way kinder than my husband's last friend, see?'' She turns slightly to the side and pulls the hair up to reveal a big scar on the scalp that was hidden by the hair. “I used to hate that Gallivanter, but I have to admit it was a good purchase, the trunk’s way bigger than a Glendale's.”

Michael watches her rub the wrists and look around. He followed her eyes to see if she was checking for exit points, but they stopped at the dirty dishes again with a frown. “Look, this may be different from past experiences and I know the place is disgusting, the owner’s just as bad, but you understand that you have to stay here until I fix everything, right? You won’t go home for a while.”

“Yes, I understand.”

Mrs. Madrazo smiles and moves a tissue box away to adjust herself on the awful couch, reaching for random magazines to begin stacking them on a tide pile. Her indifference towards the whole situation makes him uncomfortable. Michael stands there in disbelief until he feels a mosquito bite on the neck, slapping his skin in the hope to kill the bastard.

“Fuckin’ A. Uhm, do you want something to drink? I doubt there’s anything that isn’t fucking spoiled but…”

“Not in the moment, thank you.”

“Okay…”

As expected, the only thing that wasn’t expired and molded was a pack of beer. He opens one at the refrigerator handle before joining the woman on the now empty space by her side on the couch. The chinos would probably be ruined, stained with grease, filth and Lord knows what else just like the suit jacket he had to take off earlier to keep him from passing out in that desert heat.

“So,” Michael wipes the sweat from the forehead and takes a sip from the bottle. “Does it happen often? People taking you?”

She stops stacking the empty plastic cups inside each other like she had been doing by her feet to stare at him again. “Not often, no. But Martin and I had been married for 35 years now so it’s not that surprising anymore.”

“35 years?” Michael snorts, thinking about Amanda and their deteriorating relationship. “I don’t think I will get to mine’s 23rd. It’s actually surprising it got this far. Guess we didn’t have much choice… Tell me, what’s the secret for 35?”

“There’s no magic formula, Mr. De Santa. To me it’s about loyalty, forgiving and acceptance.”

“I guess when you’re a mob boss wife, you kinda have to have a lot of all that, huh?”

“The way I see it applies to all types of relationship,” she smirks to herself while mindlessly adjusting her necklace. “Even like the one you and Trevor have.”

Michael takes a big sip from the beer hoping it would help him swallow the lump forming on his throat but it only makes him almost choke on the liquid. He coughs, wipes the mouth with the back of the hand, pretends he hasn't heard that. Before Michael can come up with anything to say to stop the awkwardness, she stares dreamily at the calendar on the wall next to the bedroom door.

“He saved me from the very unhappy fate of an arranged marriage to a guy with double my age at the time. We literally ran away and went on adventures, he gifted me jewelry… 1974 was a honeymoon year and Martin was so handsome. Even more handsome than Jorge Rivero in the movie Erotica.”

“Hm, Emilio Fernández directed this one, didn’t he? The guy who made uhm, La Perla? 1947?”

“Yes, La Perla is a classic, but Erotica is quite amazing too.” she holds the crucifix inside her fist and leans closer for a moment to whisper. “It’s a sexy film.”

“Mrs M…” he chuckles with raised eyebrows and she waves the hands with a tiny smile.

“I was a young lady once. And a pretty one too. Always have been bad with weapons despite Martin’s attempts to teach me, but I would carry a dagger on my garter belt underneath the skirt to some meetings just to make the rivals really envious.”

Sliding the pad of his thumb through the corner of the bottle label Michael’s mind goes back to his own marriage and the already well-known question  _ ‘where did we mess it up?’ _ creeps from the dark mental box he had pushed it in. It’s not like he couldn’t find the answer to it, but how the reasons keep popping up. He had lied, cheated and went behind his wife back. He had been absent, reckless, indifferent. All that had lead Amanda to do the same and got them stuck on this competitive cycle with no winners.

There’s some guilt on him. Especially sitting there beside Patricia Madrazo and seeing her scar, probably just one of many, seeing how it’s so natural for her to be kidnapped by a monster as if it was just another Tuesday. What kind of life was that?

The reason why Amanda’s stranded on a ruined marriage with him, a retired criminal who could only feel something real when he had a gun in his hand or a price over his head, for two decades is because he couldn’t keep himself out of stripper joints and wasn’t careful enough. He had taken her from her family home to drag her to the reality of a dangerous life where she would never be completely safe. But then again, if it wasn’t for him she would still be stuck in the snow with a flat chest and no mansion, no 2 doors convertible, no fancy clothing, no fucking tennis or fucking yoga both the classes and the instructors an-

Mrs. Madrazo puts the hand on top of his. Only then Michael realizes he had been trying to peel the label so hard that the corner of it had prodded the skin under his fingernail causing it to bleed. She takes the bottle from him, puts it at her feet and he lets her since it was already empty. Their eyes meet again.

“In all these years, did you ever try to make him drop the whole crime life?”

The question makes her think for a moment before sighing, turning the head to the empty space between the couch and the door of the trailer to get lost on another daydream.

“Martin was already building his empire when we met and I fell for the passion, the fire in his eyes. The world didn’t give him a chance, it said that there wasn’t a place for someone like him so he was creating one for himself.” She closes the eyes and smiles. “I saw Mr. De Santa, countless times, the pure joy radiating from him after closing deals. The delight of feeling successful, of fulfilling his destiny and finally finding his purpose.”

The woman opens the eyes to look at him again, holds the hands on her lap and shrugs.

“Men who taste this kind of power won’t ever settle for less. So to answer your question, no. I could never ask that because putting down the fire that moved Martin would turn him to ice. It would break him and seeing him become water to slip between my fingers would end me too.”

“Yeah, I… I see.”

“It never gets easier or less scary for me, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for him.”

“Would it be different if you had kids?”

“What makes you think we don’t?”

The sound of Trevor’s reckless driving the Bodhi into the fence and the slamming door sound announce his arrival even before he screams for Ron to come and fix the damage if the poor man would like to keep the limps attached to his torso. Michael’s already messaging the temples and grunting to himself, the annoying ache of a headache already pulsating behind the eyes. And to think that was the only day one of his unwanted, unexpected vacations to the infamous Sandy Shores desert… He would have a long couple of days ahead.

“Honey, I’m home!”

Trevor stands in the middle of the room with open arms, genuinely excited as if that were a party. High on speed, clearly. Michael snorts to the sight.

“Fuck off, Trevor.”

“I wasn’t talking with you, sugar tits.” The other man crouches in front of Mrs. Madrazo to hand her a bottle of medicine. “Here, see if it’s the right one.”

“My cholesterol medicine! You’re such a nice man. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” taking one of her hands into his, Trevor smiles big and wholeheartedly. “Anything for you Mrs. M.”

“Do you mind if I do the dishes and tidy some of the place? I would like to be useful during my stay here. It’s the least I can do.”

“If it makes you happy, of course, go ahead. Mi casa is su casa.” Trevor doesn’t even pretend he’s not giving a side-eye to Michael, raises the voice slightly. “It warms my heart to know  _ somebody _ appreciates my hospitality, you know?”

“Oh yeah, you’re right, I should be more grateful.” Michael gets up shaking the head, tries and fails to not raise his own voice. “Thank you, Trevor, for fucking it up a very simple task and get us exiled from the city to hide out on this private piece of landfill you call home!”

“Are you really that eager to go back to your cheating wife and alienated kids? Oh, wait! They fucking left you already. All you fucking got is a mansion as empty as the space inside your chest where your heart used to be!”

“Fuck you!” he vibrates with anger, hands closed in fists. Trevor had stood up too and was close enough for him to see the new marks time and meth had etched on his face. Michael steps back, puts distance between them again. When he talks, much of the poison has left his tone. “I’m going to buy cigarettes.”

Before passing through the door to the unforgiving heat, he flips off Trevor’s specific and long request for food that wouldn’t upset the old woman's stomach followed by complaints about his smoking habits. He passes through Ron too, fisher hat doing a poor job of protecting him from the sun and bandaged left knee struggling to hold the half-kneeling position. The creepy man almost falls to the dirt when Michael hops inside the red pickup and twists the key that was still hanging on the ignition to start the engine.

“Hey! Who do you think you’re to take the boss's car like this?!”

“If you don’t take care of your own business you’ll find out exactly who the fuck I’m and I promise you won’t like it.”

Ron’s left to wave the sand and smoke out of his face when Michael drives off. He passes straight the convenience store close to the place, keeps driving forward with no hurry while wondering how the fuck he’s going to survive living in this hell. The trailer already seemed too small for Mrs. Madrazo, Trevor, his madness, Michael, his guilt and the complicated fucking history they had.

Maybe that was a nightmare. Maybe, or better yet, luckily, Michael would wake up by his amazing pool anytime. There would be a strong drink in his hand, Phil Collins would be coming out of the earphones straight to his ears and when the song dies down, Amanda would still be on a screaming match with Tracey about her hobo boyfriend while Jimmy curses the virtual enemies on that shitty video game. The house would be filled with the familiar arguments, annoying pop music and smell of pot coming from upstairs. Trevor would still be just an old lost memory, a mythological creature from a tale someone told him once. Michael Townley would still be dead underneath the snow of North Yankton. Anytime now Michael, anytime…

He wouldn’t keep being chased by ghosts of past decisions, wouldn’t have to be forced to make another one about the same problem again down the line, he wouldn't be sucked back to his old ways. His kids would find their path, his wife would still be up to make things right between them. His sacrifice would have been worth it. They could do it. Mrs. Madrazo managed to find a way to make her marriage survive with that fucked up shitty kingpin she calls husband after all he put her through! It was possible, it had to be.

Of course, that for that to happen Amanda would have to be willing to stop bringing his past fuck ups every time they tried to move forward. Maybe for once, she would stop demanding more and more from him. Who knows, maybe actually, for once in all those years, she could fucking recognize all that Michael had given up for her and the kids. Imagine that! Amanda realizing he had renounced his career, his ambitions, his passion, gone from living an exciting chaotic way of living that made him feel alive to a stagnant routine, that not fitting in with their born rich neighbors had finally led him to give in to seclusion. That he had sold his fucking best friend, the closest person he had ever had. Ah, that would be something… Something that would never happen.

Michael laughs to himself, letting the hand that isn’t wiping the sweat from his forehead slide from the top of the wheel to the side of it while thinking how fucked up it was that a couple of nutcases like the Madrazos seem to have a personal life more on track than him.

Every day spent in that damn desert’s a day in his own personal purgatory. After a week there, while he’s sitting at the ruined armchair outside sulking, Trevor opens the front door to breathe in the smell of dry dustiness deeply and declares  _ ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning!’ _ as if Michael wouldn’t know it was a reference to Coppola’s 1979 movie Apocalypse Now with Marlon Brando. Dipshit… Having fun with his misery. Fuck Trevor Philips.

And fuck the Madrazos too.

Fuck Martin for being an abusive piece of shit husband who treated the woman like trash most of the times – she had said that he wasn’t mean all the time two days ago while they had Chinese food on a miraculously clean room and Michael snorted,  _ ‘of course,’ _ he had said in between bites  _ ‘I’m sure he stops when he’s asleep’ _ . Trevor hid the face behind his takeout box and Michael felt a warm comfort, probably from the food, knowing he was smiling. The woman, however, gave him a side glance with eyes slightly narrowed.

At the risk of sounding rude, fuck Patricia Madrazo too. Fuck her kind, sweet, old lady, eager to help bullshit. Cleaning the entire trailer, ironing his clothes, flipping the fucking calendar at the start of a new month. For someone who had to spend hours talking about how devoted she was to her stupid husband, she sure as hell didn’t seem to miss him a bit while walking around arms linked with Trevor. Always giggling, hopping the roadkill on their way to the broken pier like it was normal and falling asleep with the head on his biceps after watching TV. It's so fucking domestic it makes Michael sick.

Michael was sick of it. He gradually smashes the door harder than needed as the days go by, goes through the Redwoods packs as if they were nothing, says he’s busy trying to call his kids because he misses them even though he wouldn’t have any idea what to say if any of them actually pick up for once. All he knows is that he needs to keep trying, he needs to go back to real life with his family where he really belonged or at least should belong. He needed to fix things with Martin and get away from Trevor as fast as possible. Before it was too late. Before it was too much.

He’s brainstorming a plan while nursing what’s left of a lukewarm beer at the porch when the weird couple arrives from their after-lunch stroll. Michael draws an annoyed grunt with a sip of the liquid.

“Here we’re my beautiful lady!”

“Thank you for the lovely chat, Trevor.”

“Thank you for the wonderful company.” Trevor steals the beer from Michael to finish it in one big gulp despite his complaints. “Now I’ll have to leave you with this grumpy fat fucker to work. Michael, you better take care of my angel.”

After kissing the back of Mrs. Madrazo's hand, Trevor makes his way to the truck parked in the front. He throws the empty bottle against Ron’s house and must hit something from the shuttering glass noise that follows the man’s anxious replies before he appears jumping inside of the sandals to get in the car. After a short argument that Ron obviously loses, they leave to who knows where. That was usually how it went but still made Michael sore. If he wasn’t parading his 60-year-old girlfriend around, he was doing business meetings with his rat-faced paranoid sidekick.

“What a fucking joke.” he puts a cigarette on the lips and paths the recently bought ridiculous Hawaiian shirt pocket for the lighter. “Work, yeah, right.”

“Friendship is a wonderful thing, Mr de Santa.”

He hums while taking the first drag, looks at Mrs. Madrazo's pleased and calm face watching the random cars passing by. Michael holds the pack out to her, she refuses with a smile.

“I think Ronald’s tongue is a little too far up Trevor ass to be just a nice little friendship. Go figures what that psycho must have done to brainwash the man into blind submission like that.”

Michael blows the smoke to the ceiling, pushes the sunglasses back in place and tries to get more comfortable at the seat when he hears her laughing. It’s such a weird laugh he has to make a double-take to make sure she’s not actually crying or choking to death.

“Los celos son los hijos bastardos del amor.”

“What?”

“Are you jealous, Mr. De Santa?”

“Of what, his speed addicted friends? His rampage episodes and fights with dumb bikers?” Michael chuckles and shakes the head. “No. I have an amazingly normal life and a great family who I can’t wait to go back to. You though, seem to be really well adjusted here now, huh?”

“It has been a nice break from the Ranch.”

“And you and Trevor seem to have bounded alright…”

“He’s a good man.”

“He kidnapped you.”

“If Trevor had to make this decision then I’m sure it’s because that’s the only option. It just goes like that sometimes, doesn’t it? You make a decision even if it’s hard for everyone.”

Michael ignores the sting of her words, brings the cigarette back to the lips again. Mrs. Madrazo waves some mosquitoes away and crosses the legs.

“Trevor and I, well, maybe in another life where our hearts didn’t belong to others, but we… We’re golondrinas.” He looks at her confused and she snaps the fingers a few times trying to remember the word in English. “Swallows! When they find their partners for life. You see, we recognize and can relate to each other, but we don’t belong to each other. We’ve done our nests in between the rib cages of men whose life turned into stone and all we can do is feel homesick until they are ready to welcome us back.”

He’s glad she can’t look into his eyes thanks to the sunglasses, doesn’t know what she would be able to see on them. Michael feels like he should say something, anything, but nothing comes out. The smell of fabric burning wakes him up. It’s all under control after a few taps on the armrest despite the fact he’s sure the owner wouldn’t matter if the thing burned down completely.

“The worst and best thing that could ever happen in his life by now just happened, you’re back from the grave.” Michael stares at her again, still lost for words. “Let me ask you this. When you were young and felt vulnerable, who was the first person you used to run to?”

He knows where she’s going with it. Take a final drag of the cigarette before dropping on the floor, putting down with the shoes and keeping the head down as if it was the most interesting thing happening. “My mother.”

“Trevor’s seeking the comfort of a mother to deal with all the changes, holding onto the illusion of family that was taken from him long ago. It might not make sense to you and it’s true that I don’t have the full picture, but I can tell life hasn’t been kind to him. Being patient seems like the least friends should do.”

She pats him in the shoulder twice and gets up, disappears through the door to watch TV, or takes a nap leaving Michael to light another smoke and think about their conversation, to realize she really was similar enough physically to remind Betty while being the furthest from her emotionally. Mrs. Madrazo might be a bit out of touch with reality most of the time, but she actually had a heart – a good and big one. Her words echo in his mind for a long time, so much he decides to try to be more patient and light up instead of being so defensive all the time. It was the least he could do for the man who once was his best friend and favorite person in the whole world.

When Trevor whistles from the door frame to get his attention the next day and nods towards the truck outside, Michael doesn’t complain under his breath, just passes the crossword he was working on to the old woman sitting comfortably at the couch with a cup of tea and follows him.

“Where are we going?”

“Out. Around. Anywhere.”

Trevor ends up driving all the way up somewhere in Mount Gordo while they argue over who gets to pick the radio station and gets to control the volume. The car owner ends up giving up so Michael switches around until finding Los Santos Rock Radio where Heartbeat by Don Johnson had just started.

“Good Lord, you know we’re not in the ’80s anymore, right?”

“It’s a good song!”

“I thought you were all about leaving the past behind, figured the music was included on it, but I guess you’re right… At least it’s not Phil Collins.”

“Fuck you! Don’t talk shit about Phil Collins.” Michael narrows the eyes to him even though he’s smirking too. “Come on, time to come clean, T. You asked me to tag along because Patricia didn’t take her arthritis medicine today, doesn't? Do you think we need to buy her a walker, maybe a cool cane?”

“Very funny, Mikey. I just got tired of seeing you mop around my place sitting on your fat ass all day. Figured it would be nice to show you my turf isn’t that bad.”

He stops the pickup, leaves the engine on so the radio keeps playing and the lights paint the rocks as the sun starts to set, changing the color of the sky to a dark shade of blue.

“So you took me to see, uhm, a radio antenna? I’m not impressed, pal.” Trevor opens the bed of the truck and sits on it so he does the same at his side. “I actually do yoga around here sometimes.”

“That’s not something you should brag about or even reveal to anyone, porkchop.”

“It’s not that bad… Even if I heard there’s a ghost haunting this place.”

“I’m not sure about ghosts, but Ron’s always talking about UFO’s sitting atop these mountains so…”

“Great," Michael tries to hide the sudden fear creeping up his spine by rubbing the back of the neck in a way he hoped it seemed nothing but casually. "Now I’m never coming here again.”

“Nah, I took you out to see the best thing we have here." Trevor knocks the elbow against him playfully. "Well, the second-best thing, actually. Bernadine’s the first and I would drive you to see her, but she had her baby number 10 at the fruit stand near the lab yesterday so…”

“Wow, seems lovely.” Michael holds the open hand and Trevor reaches for the pack of beer behind him to pick two bottles. “Something tells me she’s only called Bernadine because it rhymes with sardine…”

“I guess you’ll never know now.”

He handles him a cold beer with a smile and it’s so natural that for a moment Michael forgets this is the first time in ten years they actually sit side by side to drink, talk shit and spend time together just because. It makes him hurry to open the bottle and chug the liquid down trying to quiet his heartbeats.

“Uhm, so, the second best thing about the desert is the stars.”

“Hm... I see, you guys have different ones up here?”

Trevor forces a smile with the bottle ring resting against the lips, squint the eyes scolding him silently for being a smartass. He hums, shakes a pointing finger in his direction. “I’m trying so hard not to punch you right now.”

“I can tell.”

Michael feels more pride in still knowing how to tease him that good than he probably should, getting that reaction from Trevor makes him feel good about himself effortlessly for the first time in what seems forever. Michael drinks his beer and ignores what that says about who he’s. The other man sighs, when he speaks, is between closed teeth.

“Here, we can  _ see _ the stars, Mikey! I bet in that shit hole city you call home even the stars are fucking fake.”

“You’re probably not wrong about this.” looking up to the sky, a navy blue blanket freckled with so many shiny points of light, he relaxes against the side of the truck bed. “It’s really pretty out here.”

They fall into a silence Michael’s surprised to realize he doesn’t mind. The sounds of the crickets, the good old songs, the faint noise of the road miles away fill the void as both of them seem to grow used to each other's presence with each bottle being passed and thrown towards the freeway. What ruins the peace is the sudden emptiness of his hand when Trevor throws the last beer away to watch it explode against the side of the mountain and Michael gets stuck on the moment while watching him wipe the chin, lick the wet lips clean. What ruins the peace is the realization that the scariest ghost of that mountain is the old forgotten Ghost of His Past Life’s cold hands snaking up his back.

“Did you manage to talk to the kids?” he stops frowning at the bush near the edge of the path to see Trevor scratching the arm. Michael must seem confused about what he’s saying because he tries again. “Your kids, Tracey and Jimmy. Have you talked to them?”

“Oh, uhm, yeah. I mean, no. I left what’s probably the 30 th message and it went through so my guess is that, since the voicemail isn’t full yet, they got it. Maybe next time.”

“It was good to see them doing well despite everything.”

“Nah, man, they’re a mess...”

“I guess things really didn’t turn out like you planned, eh?”

“You have no idea.” running the hand through the hair to put back in place a lock the wind had messed with, Michael grimaces to the view. “Things haven’t been going as I planned since… Damn, I don’t even know.”

“Since you booked the worst motel in the entire Vice City where the windows wouldn't open, that’s when.” Trevor makes a face and laughs at the memory, he laughs too. “God, that was so bad.”

“With the ceiling fan that had only one blade! Oh, I remember that... That was after we robbed that jewelry in Ocean Beach right before Easter, right?”

“Yep, and we spent almost everything we got from it like it was nothing on the way back, mostly in hookers and drugs.”

“And you ruined the orgy because you snorted Viagra and got a massive nosebleed…”

“At least I didn’t faint like a pussy, alright? The girls left because they thought you were dead.”

“All my blood went to my dick, what did you expect to happen?”

“I was expecting a lot, having to babysit your unconscious ass wasn’t on the list.”

“Come on, it wasn’t so bad.” Michael knocks their shoulder together with a smirk. “I woke up eventually and was still ready to go. The E helped, I’ll give you that, but you got to admit that despite your blood and my cramps, I performed like a porn star. I mean, Peter North who?”

“Peter North…” Trevor guffaws to the sky, shake the head. “Oh Mikey, you really are into Canadian guys, eh?”

“Fuck you, it’s not like that and I didn’t even know he was Canadian.”

“Yeah, right... Damn, you’re stuck in the past, huh?” he turns slightly on the truck bed to look at him. “You’re making me feel old.”

“I have news for you, bud. You’re old. We’re both fucking old.”

“Hey, talk about yourself. I’m aging gracefully like an expensive wine…”

“Gradually becoming sourer and giving others migraines?”

“…Tasting amazing and still being able to fuck you up pretty good.”

“Alright, okay…” Michael laughs, watches Trevor hopping to the floor and making his way to the driver seat. After taking another look at the stars, he follows. “I stand by my answer though, I think it’s more accurate.”

“You’re just jealous I kept myself in shape and you didn’t. You need to lighten up… Get it? Lighten up? Because you're fat.”

Trevor starts making his way back the hill slowly as Michel tries to remember the lyrics from the song on the radio for a moment. He snorts and looks out the window.

“Funny. Let’s all laugh about the ex-jock guy as if he didn’t feel insecure about his image already, great! Also…  _ Meth _ kept you in shape. Meth and I don’t know, the hitchhikers you have for lunch apparently.”

“You were the one talking about balance earlier, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah well, I’m a fat old man with drinking problems, what do I know?” the car stops on the edge of a small lake without warning making Michael hit the head and curse. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m going for a swim.”

“Now?”

“Why not? It’s a hot night.” he starts stripping and Michael shakes the head, stares at the clear water. “I get it, Mikey, you don’t remember what’s like to have fun. Last time you did Ronald Regan was the fucking president of United States, PAC-Man had just been released, the first mobile phones were announced, the Berlin Wall was about to be torn down…”

“Fine, T. I got it.”

“If you want to sit in the truck and pout be my guest, cowboy. Maybe you’ll sweat some of your weight off… Hey!” Trevor snatches a cigarette he was about to light and throws it away. “No smoking in my car!”

“Wha-It’s all open, this thing doesn’t even have a roof.”

“Mi car, mi rules, pussy boy. Stay here and fold my clothes, eh?” he throws the shirt on his face, kicks the underwear and boots off before jumping in the water.

Michael watches him from the passenger seat for a moment before looking down at the fabric at his hand. For some reason he was still holding onto it tightly, the familiar scent of Trevor’s body and sweat, who had become so familiar and soothing in those years when they used to bunk together for weeks, still lingering beneath the stink of dirt or trash from whatever he had been getting himself into earlier. Getting reacquainted with Trevor’s scent had been so easy, so natural that part of him hated it. He hated how it would remind him of freedom, of how he also used to smell back in the days, of living inside of cars at the beginning of the bedsheets and pillowcases they shared later. He hated how it would still make him feel at home and still-

_ ‘We’ve done our nests in between the rib cages of men whose life turned into stone and all we can do is feel homesick until they are ready to welcome us back.’ _ Mrs. Madrazo's words replay on his head.

Michael hops out of the car, takes the clothes off with more intensity than he planned on doing, crumple them into a ball and throws them on the seat. Then he marches to the water under the attentive stare from the other man before changing his mind.

“Fuck you, T. You don’t tell me what to do. If this right here is the closest I can get from sulking on my swimming pool like I did before you sneak back into my life to torture me with your presence then guess what, pal? I’ll fucking take it!”

Trevor howls so loud some bushes shake giving away animals who run away to hide somewhere else. He laughs and claps enthusiastically while Michael tries not to complain about the cold water in which he was now almost completely submerged.

“That’s the Michael I know and don’t utterly despise with all my entire being…”

Forcing a smile to match his middle finger being displayed to Trevor, Michael splashes water on him only to start a pointless play fight. The mess of hands and arms pushing and pulling, trying to blind each other for long enough to hold their head under the water for a moment, goes on until both get tired. The noises die down as they breathe heavily and float in place at arms reach until Trevor clicks the tongue, looking resentfully to the Bodhi.

“I jinxed myself…”

Michael looks at the car too and is about to ask what he was talking about when he hears In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins playing from the radio. He laughs wholeheartedly for the first time since has been stuck in Blaine County, so effortlessly that he feels the need to hide his face as if he was doing something wrong. Trevor splashes him with water again.

“Was this song always this tragic?”

“The pain of a lying friend leaving you to die? Yeah, kinda fitting, huh?”

“Damn, thanks, Phil Collins… Fuck me, I guess.”

It’s Trevor’s turn to laugh and Michael allows himself to chuckle too. He hops in place slightly, creating waves that echo as far the car headlights can illuminate and frowns. “Do you really believe that?”

“Believe what?”

“About yourself being a fat old useless fuck?”

“No… It’s not like I feel completely washed up or have to pay hookers to act as if I’m sort of like I once was. Nope, I’m living the dream.”

“Jesus Mikey, with this amount of sarcasm I’m not surprised.”

“Oh, bite me.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“No.” he floats back to create more space between them, but Trevor swims closer too. Michael feels as if he lost the ground beneath his feet for a moment. “Don’t fucking start with this shit. I mean it, T… We- God, we were kids.”

“Except we were not…”

“Yes, we were!”

“Aren’t you tired of lying to yourself yet?” Michael feels a rock behind him. He knows the smart thing to do was go back to the pickup without looking back and still, he can’t move as Trevor invades his personal space. “How lucky have you been in finding a whore who goes along with your role play scenarios without cringing? Who doesn’t look at you funny when you ask to choke her or mind some gunplay?”

“Shut up.”

Maybe was the longing coming from the mention of kinks he hasn’t really explored in ages, maybe was the way Trevor's voice sounded talking about it or the mere fact he knows it so well, how he doesn’t care and more than that, how it instigates him. Whatever it was, Trevor was looking at him like that, like he  _ sees _ him and it’s so intense Michael struggles to keep the breath steady.

“When was the last time someone shamelessly gave themselves to you, huh? Did Amanda ever knew how to? Have she ever made you feel fucking amazing like I did?”

“T…”

“When was the last time she let you fill her with your cum? The last time she kissed so hard after sucking you off you could taste yourself on her tongue?” Trevor crooks the neck to breathe against his lips, his eyes are already closed when Michael shuts him and the voice is just a thick whisper. “You’re still so fucking delicious, I still want you so fucking much…”

With the heart-thumping inside his chest, Michael holds Trevor by both sides of the face and pulls him for a kiss and after minutes of that, in between muffled moans, teeth tugging lips, hands rediscovering curves and skin, they end up stumbling into shore. Michael curses when he slips. Having nothing but the other’s body to hold onto, he falls taking Trevor down too. He barely seems to notice, just climbs on his lap to keep kissing him.

“We shouldn’t be doing this here…” Trevor bows his head to lick his neck as Michael looks around. “There’s a hiking trail around, hippies, ghosts, aliens…”

“Lucky for us I’m an exhibitionist who doesn’t mind a good orgy.”

He hisses at the sharp pain of getting bitten, tries to suppress a smile. The sensation of Trevor’s facial hair scratching his skin makes him shiver and shut the eyes. “God, you’re a pervert.”

“Don’t pretend public indecency doesn’t get you off, I don’t need to look at you to know you’re smirking, sugar tits.”

“What doesn’t get me off is making out like a teenager so are you going to actually do something or what?”

“So typical, thinking about yourself again.” he pulls away to look at him in the eyes, nods slowly with the hands on the hips as if they were doing groceries and not naked by a lake under the moonlight. “Well, once again, you’re wrong and I’ll prove it.”

“Oh, are you now?”

“Watch…” he leans forward, but before Michael can close the gap between their mouths, Trevor pulls away again and giggles. “All you need is to be kissed often by someone who knows how.”

“Gone with the wind… Good one.”

This time when he leans forward Michael doesn’t let him escape, kisses him deep and as hungry as the black hole inside his chest that has been starving for that intimate connection. Fucking Trevor and his silly jokes about his interests, the low throaty noises he makes as Michael sucks his bottom lip, how he guides Michael’s hands down his chest and abdomen and how the muscles contract underneath his fingertips. He doesn’t know how much time has passed until Trevor starts pumping him off lazily and he breaks the kiss to tilt the head behind with a gasp of surprise.

“Look who’s up, eh?” Trevor nibbles his ear and smiles. “Told ya.”

Michael’s about to make a snarky remark just to piss him off when he stops and gets off of him. There’s a moment of absolute dread where Michael’s completely sure he’ll jump in the truck and drive away without looking back, leaving him to walk back to the desert butt naked. The fear of humiliation, the small voice in the back of his head telling he would deserve it, all that almost killed his boner. Before it happens, a bottle of lube hits his shoulder. He let out a breath of relief.

On a swift movement, Michael stops Trevor on the way back to his lap only to flip them over. “Enough with the little games now…”

“Finally. It’s not quite a beach, but I’ll take it for now.”

The memory stings as he drinks the sight of Trevor laying beneath him, caressing whatever patch of skin his hands could reach, folded knees on each side of his hips, waiting as he tugs at his cock slowly with a lubed hand. This, everything, so new and yet so fucking familiar that makes him tingle with excitement. When he reaches down to get Trevor ready to take him in, he’s stopped.

“You really think I didn’t come here prepared?”

“So you were already planning this, huh? Just proves my point, you’re a pervert.”

“Hey, I bet you can’t guess how many times I’ve fucked myself thinking about this during all these days you’ve been living in my house.” he hums against Michael’s mouth when he lifts his hips to bring it closer so they fit together, presses the edge of his cock against his entry. “And watching you shooting scumbags dead from my heli so effortlessly, so synced up again… It never fails to turn me on.”

Trevor gasps as he slides in. Grabs a fistful of his hair while Michael pushes in slowly to make the most out of the moment and a long breath escapes his lips as he presses the forehead against the other’s collarbone, basking in the sensations.

“Fuck T, how are you so tight?”

He left a breathless laugh out, adjusting and relaxing around him. By the way Trevor’s chin hits his ear, he’s shaking the head side to side.

“No, your dick is just so huge that any hole feels too small.”

“Ha, really funny.”

“Oh wait, I have a better one! Look at me.” Michael supports the weight on the elbows to stare at him, eyebrows already raised, already not impressed about what he’s about to say. Trevor however, seems completely serious while holding him by the neck. “The only fat thing about you besides your ego is this big juicy cock you have deep inside of me.”

Michael tries not to laugh and fails, blames the heat spreading through his face and body to the malice on the cheap dirty talk he embarrassingly loved and not in the fact that maybe Trevor really desires him just as much he did when he was young and fit.

“Do you ever shut up?” he begins a slow and steady motion when the other man slides the hands to his asscheeks, a sign he was ready for more. “Like, ever?”

“Why don’t you make me quiet and fill me up until I can’t take it no more, huh? Are you too old for that too? Forgot how to do it?”

Covering his mouth with the hand Michael wipes off the smirk out of him, but not the smug look on his eyes. That look he gets hid of by picking up the pace of his thrusts and really fucking Trevor until his eyes are half-shut.

Michael wishes they were on a bed. First, because he would be sore as ever in a few hours and second because he would have something to hold onto, to give him leverage to bury himself back deep inside Trevor after pulling almost all of his length out. Maybe it's the slippery rocks or maybe it’s the way the other calls for him when Michael lets the hand move from his mouth to pull what’s left of his hair behind, but his knees get weak.

He adjusts himself, rolls the hips instead of rocking them and finds the right spot again to watch Trevor melting into a mumbling mess and noisy breathing. Michael reaches in between their bodies to jerk him off, feeling the telltale signs of his own climax sooner than he’d like. He kisses him hard as if that would make time stop. As if this time would work. It doesn’t, but feels just as good as it did before. _ ‘The worst and best thing that could ever happen’ _ .

“Mikey…” Trevor slides the hands from his sides to his chest and neck with eyes needy, scared and shiny. “Mikey…”

“I’m here.”

“You’re here.”

“It’s okay, I’m here.”

Trevor nods, gasps and shivers from crying or of pleasure, he didn’t know for sure. The first tears roll from the corner of his eyes as he tilts the head back and lets out a lengthy moan, the hands grab a hold of Michael’s biceps to pull him closer, deeper, in in in in in. Michael’s hand moves faster, more erratically.

“I’m here with you, T.” giving in to a sudden urge, Michael forces his chin down to press kisses across his wet face as if it would ease the pain. He knows it won’t. “I’m here.”

The way Trevor looks at him in the eyes as he cums, lips parted on a raspy low cry, body shuddering violently and hands clinging to him... It all seems to rip him in two and sew him back together all at once. Soon Michael loses control of the languid movements to fuck him fast and hard until he’s cumming too.

Michael slips out of him and half collapses bonelessly against his chest, closes the eyes to focus on nothing but the breeze, their hearts beating and an annoying commercial break from the radio station.

He can’t look at Trevor right now. Not before slipping back into his Michael De Santa’s bodysuit to play his part as a grumpy retired criminal who should be angry at his best friend for involving him in crazy situations and deeply upset about being away from his family. Because that’s who he was supposed to be, a concerned father and a better husband to his beautiful wife just like a normal guy. All he had to do is not enjoy what had just happened because that was just a slip-up, a mistake triggered by nostalgic memories and build up sexual energy he hasn't been letting out lately thanks to his and Amanda's busy routines. He was a normal guy, that was just an accident. That's all.

Trevor's palms slide up his sides on a soft caress making his eyes open again. He finds much more daylight painting the ambient than there was when he closed his eyes, wondering if he had actually fallen asleep at some point. Before Trevor could wrap his arms around him in a hug, Michael gets up. He almost slips again while going back to the water to clean himself, rubs the skin roughly, keeps his back to the other man. He knows what he will find written on his face – hurt and disappointment. Like so many times before.  _ ‘The worst and best thing’ _ .

He was ready to go when Michael finished getting dressed and hopped in the passenger seat. This time nobody argues over who controls the radio station. It’s a silent drive back to the desert and when the car stops in front of the trailer, Michael let out a breath thinking maybe things would be okay now. Maybe they would be able to move on and let the past stay in the past for good.

“Damn, I need a cigarette.” he chuckles relieved and looks back when he doesn’t hear footsteps following him. Trevor closes the door he had left open with a sigh. “Are you not coming, T?”

“I have some shit to do.”

“Okay, bro, got it.”

Michael’s about to turn around when he sees it and this time really sees it. He had noticed the end of it poking from beneath the sleeves of his dumb and dirty t-shirts once or twice but managed to avoid staring at his body every time Trevor was strolling around shirtless so good that he had missed the tattoo etched to his biceps. It’s a tribute cross reading R.I.P Michael, 1965-2004, “Brother” and it knocks the air out of him like being kicked in the stomach. It must show in his face because Trevor looks down at it too.

“This? Yeah, I thought about ripping it off when I heard you were alive, but… I guess we both need it as a reminder, don’t we,  _ bro _ ?”

Trevor climbs back on the car and drives off as Michael tries to hold the cracks of the wall he had built for years and fought to keep glued together in place. When he’s gone, Michael sits down on the porch steps to bury the face at the palms of the hands. The image of the ink on the other man's skin burns behind his eyelids so clear that he digs the fingertips at the creases as if he could pluck the eyeballs out.

Brother. In between fucking quotation marks. Cruelly doing the perfect job of carrying enough meaning to make sense to everyone who would see and still hiding so much more history than that. That wasn’t just a tattoo about him, it was  _ for _ him because Brother wasn’t a word, Brother was a place. The place where they had kissed for the first time and held hands and where Michael felt… Where Michael felt and he  _ knew _ .

Michael screams in anger so loud someone drops something in the next trailer and a few random hillbillies passing by turn their heads to stare at him laughing with their missing teeth. The door of Trevor’s house opens up behind him to reveal a sleepy faced Patricia Madrazo with a mug and a recently bought teapot.

“Oh, it 's you.”

“Hi Mrs. M. Can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, I’d be happy to help.”

“Can you go grab the biggest knife you can find inside and slit my throat with it? Just… End my suffering. I can’t with all this anymore.”

“I guess I could, but do you know how hard it’s to clean blood out of white wood? Besides…” she fills the mug with coffee and pushes towards him until he grabs it. “Breakfast before bloodshed, always remember the rule.”

He almost laughs as she goes back inside with the teapot. At least the burning sensation on his eyes had gone away and the hot liquid helped to dissolve the lump lodge on his throat when his mind went back to the tattoo, to the lake’s shore earlier, to the beach years and years ago.

‘ _ It’s about loyalty, forgiving and acceptance’ _ Mrs. Madrazo had said last week.

Trevor had proven his loyalty so many times there was little to no doubt about that. Michael knew the man was capable of acceptance, after all, he had accepted all the bullshit he had put him through all those years and then the wedding, the kids he ended up loving, the fact he was dead and there was nothing he could do. Forgiving, however…

Sitting at the porch in the middle of the desert Michael finds comfort knowing that would never happen. He had done well, played his cards right. Trevor would never forgive him. Not for lying about being dead for ten years, not when he eventually finds out that Brad isn’t locked up but rooting in his grave and not when he realizes that bullet was meant for him.  _ Trevor would never forgive him. _ It didn’t matter if he slipped, got nostalgic and cracked, it doesn’t matter if T still latches on the ghost of Michael Townley with tender affection. When all comes out in the light, he could count on the man to hate him with a passion only Trevor Philips had.

He had done it. He ruined for good all the chances of being the Michael he was back in 1989 – stupidly happy, dangerously free, recklessly power-hungry and belonging to Trevor. For some reason, the memory of his father stern face putting down the garden hose once he was done with beating him up for simply being dropped off by a teammate after practice pops into Michael’s mind.

“Hope you’re proud, you fucking piece of shit.”

As he finishes the cup of coffee feeling the reassuring ache he recognizes well from carrying since he can remember, Michael isn’t so sure if he means to say that to the thought of his dad or his own demons and is left wondering if those two things hadn’t already become the same inside of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- 'los celos son los hijos bastardos del amor' free translates to 'the jealousy is the bastard child of love'  
> \- peter north is a Canadian porn actor from the 80's  
> \- mrs m <3


	17. Intermission III - Michael, 1989

The room’s low-ceilinged, empty-looking and smells so much of chlorine they’re sure someone had been murdered there a few hours prior. Despite the fact Michael had seen two llamas outside near the office while grabbing the keys and how the motel was located in the middle of nowhere between Las Venturas and Bone County called Smokey by the twelve locals, the room was also tropical-themed for some reason. The wallpapers have palm trees or banana trees? Who knows. At least they had a double bed this time.

In an attempt to ease the smell, they decided to smoke some weed while the TV provided them with background noise. Neither bother to turn on the lights or do anything other than kicking off the boots and jackets before jumping on the bed to lay side by side, feet hanging from the mattress.

“What are you thinking about?” Trevor asks out of the blue.

“How no one has ever been into an empty room.” Michael blows smoke to the ceiling and narrows the eyes to the light bulb right on top of him. “Here, take it.”

“Weird but okay,” the other man takes the joint he’s holding out for him, listening. “Go on...”

“Because when you enter it, it’s not empty anymore, right? So you can’t, like… Go to an empty room. It’s impossible.”

“So like… Schrödinger's Cat shit?”

“Dude, what the fuck did you just said? What the fuck is that?”

“Jesus, Michael, haven’t you completed high school? It’s a paradox, a superposition. The room is both empty and has someone on it, both things are true at the same time.” Trevor looks at him, passes the weed back. “Schrödinger's Cat. The  _ ‘curiosity killed the cat’ _ thing, no? Nevermind Mikey.”

Smalltown Boy by Bronski Beat starts playing on the TV and at first, the two have fun singing along even if it’s out of tune completely and probably scaring some animals outside with the noise. Then by the end of the first chorus, Michael looks away from the screen to face the light bulb again, fill the lungs with smoke and close the eyes to exhale, waiting for the weed to do its magic on his brain. Trevor remains quiet and he suspects he’s being watched but doesn’t dare to open his eyes. After a long time, the other knocks their knees together softly.

“Did you ever run away from home?”

He considers ignoring the question, maybe pretend like he had fallen asleep or come up with something dumb to change the subject. Michael chooses to wait for Trevor to give up, but Trevor seems to be doing the same. It was always the same thing at this time of the year, his mind would always go back to the place he called home once and fill him with bittersweetness. Maybe it’s the weed, maybe it’s a hopeless attempt to ease the ache on his chest or maybe it’s how Trevor keeps the hand on his for a moment longer than needed while handing him the joint. Michael sighs.

“I tried a few times, but my father ended up finding and beating the shit out of me in all of them. I almost made it in 1980.” He brings the joint to the lips to take a puff. “Almost got both of us out of there, mom and I…”

Trevor waits in silence again. When Michael opens his eyes he sees him lazily scratching the belly before taking the weed back, shoots a ring of smoke up the air and watches it disappear.

“We sneaked out one night, got into the car, drove it all the way to the state border and then… She stopped. She was terrified, started to shake and apologize in between sobs saying she couldn’t, that we had to go back. We did and we were welcomed home by dad’s fists and wired hangers.”

“That’s why you’ve never visited?”

“I never visited because I don't know if I'll be capable of escaping again if I do and... I just realized that my father had turned into this evil entity, you know? He had a body that could physically hurt us, but it was more than that. He was inside her mind, keeping her hostage there, whispering in her ear. He hollowed her from good and filled her with fear instead. My mom’s cursed, poisoned, corrupted by his hate and I-”

Trevor looks at him. Michael drops the voice to a whisper, couldn’t speak louder even if he wanted to, the lump in his throat wouldn’t let him.

“Sometimes I think I’m too and it scares me so much. No matter how much distance I put between me and him, he still haunts me. He’s in my head, my anger explosions, my fists when I break things and people. I’m scared that I-”

Adjusting himself into one elbow, Trevor’s half illuminated by the TV light when he towers over Michael to gain his attention. He touches his cheek softly while looking at him in the eyes and that makes him shut up, stop being pulled down to a dark place in his mind to get back in control of himself.

“You’re nothing like your piece of shit father, Mikey. He’ll never hurt you again, got it? Never.”

"Yeah," Michael chuckles, turning the face slightly to free the cheek out of his hand and steal back the joint to put in between the lips. “Yeah… What about you, how many times did you run away?”

“From foster care? Or home-home?”

“Home-home? Wait, you? Running away from your mom’s house?”

Michael focuses on breathing in the smoke while Trevor lets the body fall back to the mattress noisily, grunting. For a long moment seems like he won’t say anything, then his eyebrows frown in concentration and he clicks the tongue. “Once.”

“How did it happen?”

“She had this really bad boyfriend in 74. They were all pieces of shit, but this guy was… A special bread of scum. He caught me, shoved me inside of the truck. Ma was there in the passenger seat but didn't say a word. We drive to this place, he pulls me back outside and locks the car. Dickhead drags me to an open grave, presses a hunting knife to my neck and looks to the car where Ma is sitting, waiting for her to give him the go-ahead nod.”

A fight starts at the motel room next to theirs, something about the guy looking at another woman’s ass at the gas station. Trevor’s eyes are still stuck on the moldy ceiling and Michael tries his best to block the sound outside to pay attention now that, as the memories get more and more clear on his head, Trevor’s voice is getting lower.

“But Ma is kind, forgiving. She shakes her head, a lock of red hair gets caught in the cherry lip gloss she loved and I ran to the car. It’s still locked so I cried and I begged and I actually had peed my pants so it’s cold and she doesn’t… She doesn’t look at me. She’s so upset she won’t even look at me and I know I’ve fucked up. That hurts so bad that I almost scream for him to just stab me already, just fucking do it, doitdoitdoitdoitdoit-”

Something heavy hit the wall so hard at their neighbor's bedroom that knocked the painting off their wall, cracking the glass. Michael had said earlier, already high as fuck, how it looked like the artist had eaten oil paint and farted on the screen. Trevor had laughed and told him he knew nothing about still art. Now, Trevor was staring at the empty space above the TV as if trying to remember what was missing there. He rests the head on the mattress again, puts the heels up to swing the legs from side to side lazily.

“Well, the car’s unlocked and I climb in, crawl to her lap, curl myself on her arms covering the fur of her winter coat with snot and tears, but she lets me. She doesn’t even tell me to shut the fuck up and stop wailing… No. Ma rewards me for learning my lesson. She shushes my chorus of apologies by touching my cheek, looks at me and she’s so precious and so good, I’m so lucky to have her. Ma tells me how nobody but her will ever want me broken like I'm and how she’s always going to be the only person to give a shit about me. So, yeah, never ran away again.”

Michael wants to say something but was focused on the burning anger inside him, doesn’t even acknowledge how the couple next door starts having some rough makeup sex despite the fact Trevor starts cheering for them by his side.

If there was someone Michael hated just as much he hated his own father, that someone was Betty Philips. Those two would have to battle for Satan’s throne one day. Most of the time Michael would actually forget about how fucked up his childhood was while hearing stories from Trevor's, some of the shit he had heard made him feel bad for complaining about being beaten up with a metal wire. He couldn’t sit there and feel sorry for having black eyes and broken bones when his best friend at age 6 was forced to spend hours inside cabinets because he  _ ‘needed to learn how to stop running to his mom all the time’ _ .

At least Michael had his mom, who even not being someone able to stand up for him, was someone who he could relate with, who would actually teach him how to lick his own wounds and cry in absolute silence, things there were actually useful to these days.

He takes a moment to remember her. For some reason, the memories of her teaching him how to play the guitar come to his mind like a movie he hasn't watched in a long time, so long that Michael had forgotten he knew how to play it. She got to teach him a couple of old songs before his father broke her fingers for taking his wallet out of the pants despite the fact she only had done it to wash the clothing. The man had said she shouldn’t be touching his personal stuff one way or another. After that, she would just point to the right notes and he would do the best to get it right. She would sing, also not really hitting the notes, but beautifully anyway, freely, like she was herself again.

One of his favorites was Happy Together by The Turtles only for the memories of the woman allowing herself to dance around the living room and then he would sing  _ ‘ba-ba-ba-ba’ _ and she would climb the couch with arms open wide to finish the song up with a huge smile.

Trevor didn’t have anyone. Not even his brother was there for him from what he could gather from the brief mentions of the other Philip’s boy. Apparently, he had fallen from a roof and died or at least that is what he had told him, how it was an accident. When Michael joked about Trevor sleeping with his mother, right at the beginning when they were still getting to know each other and before learning about the whole abusive stuff, he had looked at him really seriously in a terrifying mixture between innocence and fury and said  _ ‘I didn’t, Ryan was always in her bed so there was never room for me _ ’. One of them had got the pun all wrong and Michael didn't want to know if it was him so he never asked or joked about it anymore.

Michael hated Mrs. Philips so much his blood would boil to every mention of her. The problem was that Trevor had been too brainwashed to notice the disgusting way she treated him.  _ ‘A boy's best friend is his mother’ _ right? Except it isn’t Hitchcock, not always, not on his best friend's case. Trevor was so love-starved he would come back running even if you kicked him. Michael knew that, he hated that he had done his fair share of kicking Trevor and still, Michael blamed the other’s mom for making him that way. It was her fault.

Trevor had stolen back the joint and was blowing smoke through one of its rings looking pretty much over the talk already when Michael rolled over on top of half of him, an elbow and hand supporting his weight so he could look into Trevor’s eyes.

“Hey cowboy, I do like it rough and all, but you’re actually crunching my ribs here…”

“You know it’s not true right?”

“What?”

“That she’s the only person who’ll ever give a shit about you.”

“Townley, are you calling my mother a liar? You better not be or I’ll disembowel you and fill the empty insides with so much smoke you’ll be able to fly over this shitty town like a human blimp.”

"No," he ignores Trevor, snarls and shakes his head, adjusts one of the knees in between his legs to give him some space. “What I’m saying it’s that she’s not the only one.”

“Oh yeah? Who else is on the list, Santa Claus? Jesus? No one gives a fuck about me!”

“I do.”

He just stares at him as if those two words were the closest thing to a declaration of affection he would ever get from him and thinking about it, Michael was sure that it was. That was the most he could give Trevor and as always, even if it’s not much, when he wraps the arms around Michael's shoulders for a bone-crushing hug, he knows that somehow it's enough. Promises, Promises from Naked Eyes were playing on the TV now, but he was too slow from the weed and too lost in the faint earthy after-rain smell he swears he can feel on Trevor's skin.

“Hey, Mikey?” he hooks one of the legs on his and Michael hums to indicate he's listening, nuzzles Trevor's neck with the eyes closed, makes him giggle. “What do you want for your birthday?”

Trevor pushes his chest away, licks the lips before puffing the joint and Michael feels dizzy looking at him. The intense jittery sensation on the stomach catches him so by surprise he thinks he might be sick. He disguises the goosebumps running all over his arms and neck with an exaggerated shrug, swallows hard and crawls away from Trevor to hide in the bathroom before he does something silly, something like leaning down and just fucking ki-

“Ah! I know just what I’m going to get you…”

“Do you, huh? W-What’s going to be?”

“You’ll have to wait and see,” he laughs to himself. “Wait and see.”

One week later, after a couple of days gone following the big job in Green River where they got an amazing amount of cash, Trevor shows up with a smile and a gift. The barely used Super 8 has Michael talking non stop about shit he knew the other man didn’t find even half as thrilling as him, but listened to it anyway, smiling just because. Michael thinks that was it, the whole present he had come up with that year. Michael was wrong.

That awful nautical themed gift wrapper should have given it away, it was a clear hint and still goes unnoticed. Another week goes by and all he knows it’s that they’re on a vacation trip, the destination completely unknown to him. Michael only knows they’re in some ghost town in Oregon when the stolen Futo gives upon them without any sort of warning. The welcoming sign read only  _ ‘Brother’ _ , the final  _ ‘s’ _ already long erased by the time and weather. There’s absolutely nothing in the community but half a dozen of tiny houses, a medium-size bar, a dusty motel, a gas station and a diner. However it was, it would have to do for the weekend.

Turns out they had been in the worst bars in those years moving around. The place wasn’t covered in snow, the beer’s cheap and cold, the music was loud and all over the place as if the radio station person was also drunk in their little office outside somewhere in the vast desert. Nobody should stay in that region for too long given the fact people didn’t even seem to mind their new faces, didn’t feel the need to bother getting to know them. Trevor, as always, had already met the local drug dealer to buy them some shit and they had wasted little time before locking themselves into a stall together.

He’s chopping up the cocaine, preparing the lines on top of the paper toilet dispenser and bobbing the head to a song Michael doesn’t recognize and Michael doesn’t know why but he’s once more taken by a crazy sudden urge to lean forward and nuzzle against his recently washed hair, taste the skin of his neck, biting a path from his jawline to the corner of his lips and-

“I’m trying so hard to behave and don’t ruin our trip, but this shit better be good or I swear I’ll make a suit with that redneck's skin.”

Shoving the fists into the pockets, Michael reclines himself against the stall wall to keep steady. He grunts annoyed for not being able to blame weed or alcohol and hoping it does a good job getting rid of the tingly feeling spreading through his entire body. “Where the fuck are we going by the way? I think it’s time for you to stop playing around and tell me.”

“You’re no fun are you?”

Trevor steps away, handles him a rolled dollar bill. Michael snatches his hand to snort the entire line on a swift move, feel the familiar burning on the nose and behind the eye. “Getting stranded on this shit hole is fun to you?”

“We can make our own fun, Mikey! But fine,” he takes the bill back and waves around dramatically. “We’re going to somewhere near Natural Bridges, there are some cool beaches there and you can see the ocean and yaddayaddayadda…”

He’s punching the dispenser and cursing as the blow does its trick and misses the complete shock on Michael's face. “How did you…”

“You told me on the day we met. We were flying over the Whitewater Lake in Manitoba after kicking the man’s body out, you looked at the view and said you always wanted to see the ocean. When we dropped the cargo the guy was singing Van Morrison’s Into The Mystic, remember that?  _ ‘Smell the sea and feel the sky’ _ , bla bla bla. I always thought it was funny bec-”

Michael does it, leans forward until their lips meet and pulls away just slightly to look at Trevor’s face. That was bad, but at least he had shut up. It makes him feels stupid right away for reacting like that was his first kiss even if, in a way, that’s exactly what that was. Out of the sudden he doesn’t know what to do with the hands, considers just booking out of the bathroom stall and going back to the bar or the car, or the motel, or North Yankton at once. Never look behind. This was too much, too far, too… Close. It was wrong and bad and-

The hazel wide eyes stare back at him, blink a couple of times with a mixture of disbelief and surprise before narrowing with the way his cheeks go up as he smiles as big as possible. Trevor looks at him as if he sees something deep down his soul, it gives him goosebumps and at that point, Michael’s expecting Trevor to devour him. After having denied him of that for years while he was denying himself, Michael wouldn’t be surprised if the other pressed his body against the stall and smothered him with his tongue until death and oh my God, he would take that death gladly. He couldn't speak if he tried, but if he could Michael thinks he would be pleading for it.

Instead of devouring him, Trevor presses their foreheads together before turning the head to the side, bringing their mouths close again. He doesn’t kiss him, just breaths against his lips and cups Michael’s face with the hand that isn’t resting on the wall behind him. Trevor does it carefully like you do while trying to feed a wild animal so it doesn’t get too scared and run and he’s right in doing that because Michael wants to run. This it’s too much, too far, it’s-

He gasps and closes the eyes to the feeling of his best friend thumb gently tracing the bottom line of his lips, closes the hand into a fist on the sides of his body and gulps down hard trying not to make a sound that could give away more than the thumping of his heart should probably be doing by now or the growing bulge in his jeans. His body is covered in goosebumps and how fucking embarrassing was that he, Michael Townley, was basically edging just with the anticipation of a kiss on the lips. He realizes that Trevor’s giving him time, offering him an easy way out of it and still-

Michael kisses him again, hard and hungry while the new synth-pop from Camouflage played to the people at the bar’s improved cardboard dance floor and leaked into the bathroom, muffled but still loud. With a fistful of Trevor’s shirt, he pulls him closer and holds onto his body. Maybe it’s the lines of cocaine he had just done, maybe was the drinks they were having for the past two hours or maybe was just how stupidly good it felt to shamelessly tongue kiss his best friend but whatever it was, Michael was feeling on top of the world.

This was as good as holding a smoking gun in his hands, as good as taking hundreds, thousands of a fucking bank. It’s intimate, visceral. It’s like the first time they had messed around years ago but also a completely different sensation. It’s exhilarating, intoxicating and  _ so – fucking – hot _ .

It gets even better when they finally stumble inside their motel room and climb on the bed. Trevor moves to his neck when Michael pulls away for air, takes the time to tug and take off as many pieces of clothes between them as he can. It’s a struggle, but they manage to break apart enough to get naked before he's ready to make his way down on Michael like it usually happened so far, however, this time he’s stopped.

“What?”

His eyes look for an answer, but Michael doesn’t know how to word it so he just reaches for his cheeks and Trevor leans towards it without even questioning, trust and devotion written all over the face. Michael smiles as he gets comfortable in between his legs, weight supported by the elbows so they can kiss again and he can slide a hand in between their bodies to jerk them both off. It’s messy, sloppy and breathy but it keeps them from finishing too quickly and Michael can’t remember the last time he felt so good with so little drugs and booze in his system. Eventually, Trevor blindly reaches for the wall, holds the headboard for support and leverage while rolling the hips against his fast enough for the bed to squeak.

“Fuck Mikey, don-don’t sto-”

He sighs and Michael swallows his moan with a kiss that ends with a bite and that’s enough to take him to the edge. He smugly watches him shuddering and painting, looking down at the mess he made on their chest as Michael milks what’s left forming a small pool on his stomach. Trevor holds his wrist to stop him when it gets too sensitive, brings his hand to lick the palm, sucks the fingers clean one by one without a hurry in the world and then kisses him again with a hum.

“You love that don’t you?” 

Trevor nods and licks his lips, pulls away a little to smile at him. He has that look like he can see deep into his entire being through his eyes, that look that makes Michael feel vulnerable, pupils blew up from what’s probably cocaine and he knows what he's going to say. Michael simply knows, as if they were so fucking intertwined that now they share a single mind and a single heart. Trevor opens the mouth to say it, but he covers it before the words can come out.

“Don’t say it.” pinning his wrist against the mattress, Trevor smirks as if he knew something too. It unsettles Michael so much it makes him raise his voice. “Whatever it is,  _ don’t say it,  _ T. Just fucking kiss me and make me cum before I change my mind about both things and find someone else to do it.”

For a moment he thinks Trevor was going to get angry, snap at him and say something to piss him off even more so the whole thing would blow up into a full argument that would ruin the vacation completely. However, that doesn’t happen. The smirk on his face fades away and it stings Michael’s chest with so much guilt that when their lips meet again, he shuts the eyes tightly closed to try to erase the sad expression on Trevor’s face before it gets imprinted on his memory forever.

Except it’s too late. The bubbling self-loathe it’s already on the back of his mind and it’s hard to shake it off. Even with the great kissing, even with Trevor’s hand jerking him off. When they break apart for air Michael doesn’t open his eyes. Not even when he feels Trevor’s free fingers touch his forehead to comb the sweaty hair behind, not when his lips press pecks all over his face.

“You’re so good to me, Mikey.” he whispers against his jaw, twists the wrist at the tip and squeezes the base of his cock making Michael’s toes curl despite the creeping anger. “I’m sorry. Look at me. Come on, look at me.”

Michael does it and falls back to the vortex of those rich hazel eyes, they share breaths in between soft kisses.

“I’m sorry.” 

“No, T. I-”

“No. It’s okay. We have time… We have all the time.” Trevor picks up the pace, stroking him hard and nodding while Michael tilts his neck behind with a groan before the air get stuck on the throat. Trevor sucks the exposed skin on top of his pulse point before grabbing a hold of his hair. “Look at me while I finish you off.”

The husky tone of his voice, the pure overwhelming desire on his best friend's face, the residual tingling sensation on his lips from his kiss and another twist of the wrist does it for Michael. He keeps the eyes on Trevor, wraps the arms around him when he’s done and the realization they only have less than half of the way to travel until the coast it’s like a stupid reminder that the trip was going too fast. He still hasn't had enough of the birthday vacation, hasn't had enough of Trevor and moments like this. At this point, he doesn’t know if he ever will.

Michael kisses him again and feels him giggling before hearing it. “What’s funny?”

“Your face, did you know you get cross-eyed when you cum?”

“No, I don’t!” Trevor laughs loud and wholeheartedly, getting poked on the ribs as a warning to stop. “I fucking hate you, do you know that?”

“Do you, though? How much?”

“So much, like...”

Trevor hums, nuzzles against the crook of his neck scratching the skin with his stubble and making Michael squirm while chuckling. He lets him kiss the spot beneath his ear, nibble his earlobe and trace a path back to his shoulder, breath in his smell. Running the fingers past the hairline, Michael caresses his scalp with the fingertips almost forgetting the itch for a smoke.

“... So, so much.”

“Tell me more.”

“I hate you so much I think I’m going to die from it.”

“Wait.” Trevor pulls away, elbow on the mattress next to his ribs and palm flat in his chest to support the weight after tucking a lock of hair behind the ear. “That’s a movie line, isn’t it?”

“What? No!”

“It is!”

“No… From what movie?”

“Gilda? 1946.”

Michael’s false innocent expression shifts into a smirk in a second, making Trevor pull a pillow from somewhere and press it on his face for a moment. He grunts in annoyance and crawls out the bed hearing Michael laugh, very pleased with himself. “Fuckin’ A! I’m actually educating you on some classic, refined cinematography culture after all… Damn, I’m really good.”

“DAmN i’M rEALly gOoD” he mocks and throws the pack of Redwoods that was sitting beside the old TV at him before Michael even asks for it. “Fuck you, Townley. Smoke your shitty cigarettes and shut up.”

Michael shoves the pillow behind the head, stretches the legs watching him turn on the bathroom lights not bothering to close the door. He lights a cigarette and savors the first drag. “No need to hide in over there, T. I know you’re blushing.”

“I’m not blushing, you moron. That’s just, uhm, post-orgasmic flush,” he calls from the other room before cursing under his breath.

Blowing out the smoke, Michael snorts and when he goes for another taste of nicotine making the pads of the finger touch his lips that still tasted like Trevor, he’s glad the man still hasn't returned or he would see how that gets him smiling, how his own face heats up.

They arrive at the destiny a day before Michael’s birthday and it’s even better than he could have imagined from the sunny weather to the fucking view. Despite being grumpy at the final stretch there, mostly for feeling  _ extremely _ silly about being so excited, with the feet in the warm sand and standing in front of so much water that seemed to have no end, the sight takes his breath away. He takes a moment to absorb everything. The sound of the waves, the sea breeze messing up his hair that was getting longer than he was used to, the chirping of random seagulls flying around.

“Happy birthday, Mikey-boy.”

Michael turns the face to see Trevor smiling behind the Super 8, pleased with himself for planning the vacation. He’s so happy that doesn’t even see the point of trying to hide or do his best to wipe that smugness out of him. Instead, Michael opens the arms to shout to the sky in celebration before throwing himself against his best friend for a hug.

The small group of people passing by doesn’t seem to mind when they run to the water jumping out of the clothes, playing like happy, stainless kids they didn’t have the chance to be. They walk along the shore away from the central part to explore the beach, Trevor picking up seashells only to laugh at them and show him so he could laugh as well as if they were something even remotely funny. Michael watches him in silence, laughs along anyway.

There’s some space with rocks that they can climb and Michael takes the chance to sit down and rest before going back, looking for a motel to stay the night. The water splashes salty water on them every once in a while and the sky’s already changing color to a shade of purple that mingles with the previous orange like a stupid work of art. It barely feels real.

“One day I’ll buy a house on a beach.”

“That’s your plan for your retirement?”

“Yep.” he nods and when Trevor puts an arm around his neck, he notices the brief surprise on his face when Michael leans against him instead of pushing. “Give me a couple of years and you’ll see.”

“A couple of years? A couple of decades. We still have a lot to do before settling down.”

“The Big One…”

“The Big One!” Trevor shouts to the air. “I bet we’ll be robbing enough to buy an entire beach to ourselves…”

Michael pulls him for a kiss without even thinking about it, smirks when feels him melting into it with a small smile. Maybe it’s the ocean, maybe it’s the hazy feeling that was just a dream, maybe it’s how Trevor’s dangerously skilled hand already found a way to his dick, but he didn’t even mind. For once in a long time his mind was quiet, he felt peaceful and while Trevor sucks him off unhurried as if they owned the world and weren’t in a public place, Michael just rest against the rock, allows himself to moan as loud as the crashing waves sound and soaks in the view.

On the way back to the town as they look for a motel that is both close to the beach and not a shit hole for once, instead of telling Trevor to shut up with the complaints about getting nothing but a handjob from him back there, he laughs wholeheartedly.

“We’ll have a beach one day,” he snarls close to his ear as the front desk attendant goes to pick up a room key. “and we’ll fuck on every inch of it.”

“That’s a lot of fucking, bud.”

“Oh, it is! So you better be ready.”

He’s laughing so much the young lady cluelessly laughs along while dropping the keys on his hand and wishing them a good stay. Michael feels drunk out of his mind without having drunk a single drop of alcohol in 12+ hours.  _ ‘Is this what being happy feels like?’ _ he thinks opening the door.

When Michael turns on the TV to find The Philadelphia Story playing he already knows the other man will give him an earful about it so there’s no surprise to see him coming out of the bathroom to roll his eyes at the screen. Michael recognizes the look on his face before he even opens his mouth. All Trevor does is raise the eyebrows ever so slightly, sigh and puff the chest for him to know he’s going to tease him. It would usually make Michael angry, but all he can do is smile while seated at the armrest of the recliner and wait for it.

“What is it now, T?”

“I was just thinking…”

“Bad start, but go ahead…”

“There’s a magnificence that comes out of your eyes and in your voice and in the way you stand and the way you walk…”

“Oh, fuck you.” he stands up and snorts. "Of course."

Great, he was quoting the movie, the tables had turned. Why did he insist on watching good classic films with that Canuck again? It was always the same thing, giving that idiot ammo to mess with him. Michael crosses the arms in front of the chest and watches Trevor slowly making his way towards him, tries very hard to pretend he doesn’t like it when he does that.

“… There's fires banked down in you, hearth fires and holocausts. You're flesh and blood and that's the blank, unholy surprise. You're the golden boy, Mikey…”

Trevor’s close enough so he can feel the smell of the cherry candy they got on the way coming from his mouth, the memory of the taste of his lips tickling his stomach once again.

“… You're full of life and warmth and delight.”

“Shut up,” Michael pulls him to a kiss and feels himself smiling against his lips in between pecks. “Shut up, shut up, shut up, shu-”

As they trip over the backpacks and their own feet to fall on the bed where they wouldn’t leave until the next morning to watch the sunrise at the beach, Michael’s filled by two convictions – how that  _ was _ happiness and that nothing would keep him from sharing it with Trevor Philips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- the Camouflage song mentioned is Love is a Shield  
> also here's a clip from The Philadelphia Story (1940) scene mentioned at the end if you'd like to check it out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCl3EnHnm_c


	18. Tracey, september 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw - eating disorder

So that’s where her mint green sunglasses had been, Tracey notices after opening the eyes to the view of the mess lying underneath her bed. For a moment all the girl does is close the eyes again. She doesn’t quite remember what she was doing before fainting, but she feels so weak that maybe the best thing to do would be just hanging out on the carpet until sleep comes. Her stomach cramps, not approving the idea.

With a grunt and a lot of effort, Tracey sits up enough to grab the sheets, pulling the body up to stand on her two feet. Her reflection in the mirror displays a small cut on the cheekbone she had hit on the floor and when she goes to touch it, realizes there was a lighter on her hand all this time. She leaves it at the nightstand and hears the voices of her brother and father downstairs. Trying to remember what happened before the blackout is useless, her mind was blank and by the way that her insides seem to twist and turn, her stomach was too.

“Why do I always have to go with you?

“We both can use some exercise.”

“I don’t know pops, mom was telling me about this monk interview she was reading about how sound can change the water molecules and because we’re made of water, the words we talk about ourselves have the power to transform us.” he takes a bite of the sandwich in his plate and waves at her when she enters the kitchen, she waves back. “Hey, Trace.”

“So what,” Michael hears the girl’s silent request and moves away from the cabinet door so she can open it. “you’ll sit on your ass repeating to yourself you’re fit and not entirely useless until you believe it’s true? I thought you already did that.”

“No, it means I’m trying to love myself more.”

“Oh, so you’re jerking off before and after every meal now? Damn, I guess it’s okay as long it’s not during the meals.”

“Ew dad, thanks, now I think I’m too disgusted to eat anything.” Tracey dips a cracker into the yogurt she gets from the fridge and bites into it.

“You guys are haters.” the boy takes a big sip from his soda can. “I’m beautiful and words can't bring me down.”

“Did you just quote Christina Aguilera?”

“No! I’m pretty sure Walt Whitman said that.”

Tracey almost chokes on a cracker, feels the edge scratching the back of her sensitive throat making her eyes water. Michael reaches for Jimmy’s soda, putting it in front of her, but the girl shakes the head and hurries to get water in a cup. Her brother takes the soda back.

“Look," their dad stops sending him an apprehensive look and opens his arms. "All I’m saying is that if you want something you gotta work hard for it…”

“Or stab your best friend in the back for it…”

It’s just a mumble that escapes the boy, Tracey doesn’t even know if she heard it right, but Michael frowns and shifts the weight from one leg to another.

“What the  _ fuck _ did you said, James?”

Making sure to coat the next cracker with extra yogurt, the girl exchanges a look with her brother. They had done that many times. It was a technique it always worked pretty well when their parents were arguing – if they would get into a fight, Michael and Amanda would stop screaming at each other to scream at them. Eventually, things would calm down and the adults would be too tired or already over the reason it all started to continue going against each other.

"James, I asked you a fucking question."

She starts humming to herself while making a plate, fills a big cup with water and puts a straw on it. When the distraction had worked its magic she could stomp back to her room to eat in privacy just like she wanted. A win-win. For a few seconds, the humming is the only sound in the kitchen other than the loud slurping from Jimmy at his can and the eventual silverware clicking against the glass as he gains time.

“I didn't say anything! Tracey, can you shut up? You’re singing it wrong again, the melody’s all weird.”

“Fuck you, Jimmy, the only thing is wrong here is the fact I’m related to a dickhead like you!”

“You’re so dumb, you can’t even get a children lullaby right.”

“Why do you even fucking care?”

She slams the fridge door so hard the things inside all shake against themselves, Jimmy steals a look with the corner of the eye to see Michael massaging the eyes with the palm of the hands. The boy sends her a thumbs up and she nods. He hits the can against the surface and continues the argument. “Uhm, well, because Itsy Bitsy Spider is a classic and that’s not how it goes!”

“That’s because it’s not Itsy Bitsy Spider, it’s…” their dad drops the hands back down and leans against the island. “Another version. Something about plucking feathers off a lark supposed to teach body parts names for kids.”

He’s so lost in thoughts that Tracey stops to listen, plate in hand, mouth full of crackers. Michael let out the ghost of a laugh and shakes his head.

“Just like the thing where you used to growl like a dog at everything that scared you, your mom hated it. You… Oh, you used to love it so damn much. At the end when the song speeds up, you would be squealing and laughing so hard I lost count of how many times it made you barf.”

“Sing to us!”

“Yeah pops, sing it!”

Michael looks at them as if they weren’t there all along, snorts and waves the hand before patting the pockets for what could only be the pack of Redwoods. “Nope. I don’t sing. Besides, I don’t know the lyrics. It’s uhm, it’s in French.”

“French? Why did you-”

“It wasn’t me.” he looks down at the set of keys in his hand and plays with it for a moment before cleaning the throat. “Fuck, I’m out of cigarettes. So, Jimmy, are you ready to bounce?”

“Dad, please, don’t ever say that again. You’re too old to use slang.”

“Come on J-Dog, don’t be a hater…”

Michael tries again making both of his kids cringe. Before the girl can leave to head upstairs while the other two bickers, Amanda shows up in the entry with a pale face and eyes as wide as possible. There’s a tangled and slightly bloody towel in hands that Tracey recognizes. It makes her go cold, the knees go weak enough to make the girl have to hold onto the counter to keep standing.

“Tracey… What the fuck this means?” silence fills the room and the air feels so heavy it makes Tracey dizzy. Amanda raises the voice enough to make her vibrate. “Answer me!”

“I… Mom, what the fuck? Why are you-Were-”

“Are you doing it again?”

She gets chills from having all the eyes on her, the words don’t come out. Amanda is breathing hard as if she had been playing tennis the whole morning despite the wet hair and damp clothes indicating she had just got out of the shower. Her eyes go to Jimmy and Tracey sees how he looks back, swallows down hard. The plates fall from her hand and Michael stops her from launching forward against the boy.

“It was you! You fucking told her, you motherfucker! I fucking hate you, James, you had no fucking right to say shit! I hate you, you dipshit!”

Amanda raises the hand to make her stop talking and it also works to keep Michael from saying whatever he was about to say. Their mother still had the eyes fixed on Jimmy.

“Did you know she was doing it?”

“No! I mean, I-” he looks back at Tracey and then down. “I knew she was restricting, but I didn’t think it was this bad.”

Tracey roars like a caged animal and uses the little bottled-up energy she has to try to escape her father's hands. “You’re going to pay me, you fucking cunt! I’ll fucking get you! I’ll f-”

“Your brother didn’t say anything!” Amanda yells again, squeezing the towel ball in her hands. “If he had said something I wouldn’t have learned that you need help by finding this hidden under the sink cabinet!”

So that’s what the lighter was for, Tracey remembers.

The big argument with her dad weeks ago, breaking up with Gary, the falling out with Maisy, not winning the Fame or Shame, moving out of the house and then moving back, the dinner at Del Perro’s Al Dente's to celebrate reuniting the family… It was all too suffocating as she laid in bed. It was the third time that day, both of the bathrooms were locked and she might have been too anxious, too reckless and hasty with it because there was more blood on the towel that had been before and her throat felt as sore as ever.

Tracey had waited until the noises indicated her family had all gone their separate ways. She had wiped the tears, went to the bathroom and flushed what she could from the towel down the toilet. She had washed the fingers, the hands, the chin, filled the mouth with water to spit out a bit more blood. She had watched the red string swirl around to fall down the drain and rested the head against the reflection on the mirror to cry a bit more because it was getting bad again.

It had never really gone away after a few appointments with her father’s therapist Dr. Friedlander years ago, the guy was obviously only wanting more money from him, but for a long time, she could do it twice a week and go to another one without needing it. Eventually, the girl got better at lying and hiding, she believed she was managing, controlling. However, in the last months, Tracey had lost Gary, Kelsey’s birthday party at the Richman Mansion, a trip to Las Venturas with the girls and so much of her life it made her wonder if getting out of this merry-go-round from hell was even possible at all. She was too tired to keep going, too tired to keep lying and at the same time too ashamed and scared to ask for help. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough.

The girl remembers being dizzy and not fully recognizing the reflection staring back at her in the mirror, she knew that body was hers and still felt disconnected from it. Remember kicking the dirty towel at the corner of the sink cabinet just for a while until she could find the lighter on her stuff and then go back for it to burn it like she knew she had to. Except that she never made it back to the bathroom.

Amanda’s cry wakes her up from the memories of last night. Jimmy stands up to get the towel out of her hands and throws it into the trash before going back to pass the arm around her shoulders, guiding the side of her head to the crook of his neck. Michael supports Tracey’s body when she gets too weak to keep fighting against him and the fact that’s the closest they had been from a hug in years makes her teary-eyed too.

“Sweetie," the tone in his voice, so casual and condescending, makes her feelings take a sharp shift from sadness to anger. "Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Why didn’t I tell you? Is this a fucking joke?” her elbow hits his stomach and he lets her go so she can turn around to face him. “Since when do we talk about stuff in this family?”

“This is not just something silly Trace, it affects you permanently an-"

"What you wanna know dad? What's the easiest? Ice cream. The hardest? Bread. Where have I done it? Boxes, bushes, plastic bags, the backseat of my car on dark carparks after sneaking out, not to fuck around in clubs, but to eat. How do I pay for the food? With my own fucking money, in cash so it doesn't leave receipts. For how long? Nine years." 

"Tracey...”

“You wanna talk about shit that affected me permanently? Fine. It's your turn now, tell me about Ludendorff! And I want the truth!”

“That’s not-”

“It is!” She screams to cut him off, regrets it when feels the sting at the back of her throat. “It fucking is my business! If you could take the head out of your own ass you would have realized how much. Do you really think it's a coincidence that I'm sick since you dragged us here?”

He stares at Amanda looking for some sort of help, but he doesn’t get any. She just sniffs and sinks into their son's embrace, hiding the face behind the back of the hand as if she was watching the scary part of a movie and that was too much for her. Michael rests his hands on top of the island and takes a deep, noisy breath.

“The FIB got to us and I had to make a deal to make sure our family could stay together. In exchange for the government protection, I-” he shakes the head, rubs the face. “Look, Tracey, it was never my in-”

“You did what? Say it!”

“I sold them out, okay? I did! Agent Norton and I staged a robbery in Ludendorff where they would take both Brad and Trevor, but not me. Brad got shot and didn’t make it, Trevor disappeared and we got a second chance here in Los Santos.”

“If the cops were giving us protection then why were we running for, dad? Who we were running from?” Tracey wipes the tear from the sore cheekbone and tries to make their eyes meet, the silence making the answer pretty clear for her. “You told me uncle T was dead.”

“He was being hunted by the entire FIB! I thought he wouldn’t make it…”

“Do you really expect me to believe that you wouldn’t dig for information about your fucking best friend and crime partner if there was any chance of him being alive? While being in contact with a FIB agent? While being friends with a guy like uncle Lester?”

“Tracey…”

“The only reason why you wouldn't try to find out if he was really dead would be if you wished he was. Am I wrong?”

Now that he was staring at her, Tracey could see she was right. There was this magical glow that had always been around her father. For as long she can remember, she has this one memory of being young and looking up in awe to see sunny yellow light shine around Michael’s like a halo. It could have been just her childhood imagination or he was just standing in front of the window at that old small trailer house, but it had always fascinated her. It made Tracey warm with love. The man in front of her had nothing of that, he was just void and cold.

It’s not like Tracey thinks he’s a saint. She knew her father was a criminal for a long time, but she also thought he had at least some sense of basic human integrity, at least for the guys who risked their lives by his side, who were on the run with him for years. It would be bad to sell a guy who works with you once in a blue moon, but uncle T was not just a random person. Uncle T was his best friend and fuck, after watching that tape she was sure he was way more than that.

The realization that Michael knew about the ambush for months before it actually happens and still acted like nothing was wrong, like the other man was disposable or replaceable, like he wasn’t such an important piece of his – fuck, their – lives…. All that acting, putting up all that show, the lie they had always lived in as if they were shitty sitcom characters, all built on uncle’s T suffering and demise. It made Tracey feel sick with her dad, with her mom, with herself. Has she ever known her father?

“Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m the guy who gave everything up so the three of you could be happy!” he vibrates with anger, hands closed into fist slamming against the closest surface. “That’s who the fuck I’m! Would you rather me be in jail and leave your mom alone to take care of you two? To be stuck in North Yankton, with no shopping and fancy clothes or big mansion and a nice car? Because I don’t see you complaining about that!”

“I would rather us be a real family! Look around, we have all this shit, but we’re empty! You talk as if there was no option C back there, but there is always an option C!”

“I did what I had to do!”

“You ruined our lives, Michael.” Tracey touches the throat as if holding it would stop the pain, steps away. Her eyes fall into Amanda who’s very quiet with the head down. “And you didn’t care, huh? Because it was convenient for you so fuck it! Let’s keep lying to Jimmy and Tracey! Keep them in the dark fo-”

“Stop! Don’t talk to her like that, okay? She’s not the only one who kept secret, I-” Jimmy rubs the ear anxiously, bites the inside of the cheek. “Trace, I… I kinda knew for a while. Like, years. Not everything, though! I didn’t want to hurt you and… I’m sorry.”

Hearing that really knocks the air out of her lungs. She feels the most embarrassed she has ever felt in her entire life, humiliated by her own family. She was the running joke then... The one left out from everything. With eyes filled with tears, Tracey pulls the arm away just in time to escape from her mother’s touch and watches the three staring at her as if they were something she didn't make part of, didn't belong to. Jimmy’s still mumbling apologies she can’t quite hear above the heartbeat ringing on her ears.

“-ease, I’m sorry! I really am.”

“I guess you really are your father’s son, huh?”

Despite them calling for her and the dizziness, Tracey manages to arrive at her room and lock the door. She can still hear the muffled voices talking downstairs for a long time. There’s some yelling, more glasses being broken. A door slams closed, a car leaves, the rain starts to pour. It helps Tracey to focus on fighting the shortness of breath as she tries to stop crying and focus on something that’s not her entire body aching.

She falls asleep eventually, wrapped around her red comforter and wakes up to find the bedroom completely dark. It’s still raining, the window’s open which means at least a pair of her shoes are ruined, but the girl doesn’t have the energy to even pretend to care about that. Her mind goes back to the argument then to food and her stomach rumbles again. It only makes her want to start crying again. She just wanted to feel numb instead of all that distress.

Tracey had turned on the lights to close her window and see how big the damage was on her room when there’s a light knock on the door. She doesn’t answer, just stares at it, waiting.

“Hey, it’s dad, I just want to check on you.”

She considers just remaining quiet before deciding against it, not wanting to lose her door. The first time she tries to speak nothing comes out and when she tries again the same happens. The sudden panic makes her walk to the door, taken by that childish instinct of running to a parent when something scary happens. The memories from earlier stop her from unlocking it or doing more than just standing next to it. Michael knocks again.

“Sweetie, please…”

“I-I’m okay.” she manages to say loud enough for him to sigh in a way that meant he had heard it. “I just have a sore throat.”

“Don’t force it. Can I get you anything?”

“Water, please.”

When he comes back and knocks once more, Tracey opens the door just enough to grab the big glass, smiles a tiny bit seeing the straw on it. Michael frowns for not getting more than just a gap to talk through, rubs the back of the neck. “Can we talk? Please.”

The girl notices how he’s looking at her, with pity and what could be concerning, but ends up looking a lot like a disappointment. It’s too much to bear so she nods in agreement even though she decides to close the door again. Alone, sitting down next to it, she can sip her water without worrying if he’s judging her for it. By the sound on the other side, Tracey knows Michael’s also sitting down on the floor.

“In case you wanna know your mom took some pills and managed to fall asleep half an hour ago and Jimmy doesn’t know, but he took some too. I finally got the chance of getting him back for spiking my drink, that little shit.”

Tracey rests her head against the door frame feeling the water run down her throat and down the middle of the chest to sit in the belly. She hums for him to know she’s still listening.

“I wanted to tell you about that box you found. Those are the only things I kept from before, you know, coming here. The handgun was my father’s favorite, he taught me how to shoot with it. The flower was my mom’s favorite… Black eyes Susan’s, a tragic coincidence of a name, really. The ticket from the first movie I ever watched at the theater. It’s about a crazy pilot which, huh, is another tragic coincidence, I guess.”

Tracey smirks, lick the dry lips and tries to keep from drinking the rest of the liquid in one big gulp. Humming again, she wakes him from the daydream.

“Yeah, the casino chip is from the first big job I made. I used to think it was a lucky charm, but then I got arrested and realized that was bullshit.” this time she’s the one who snorts, he seems to chuckle too. “The Polaroid and the tape are from the same year, you must have noticed. Do you… Do you wanna hear about it?”

“Yes.”

Despite her voice sounding better than before, the silence that follows makes her wonder if he didn’t hear her answer. Then he sighs, the soft thump against the door makes her think he had let the head fall back against the wood. Tracey finishes the drink while giving her father some time to come up with words, words she hoped were honest ones.

“We had pulled this good job by ourselves in Green River three weeks before my 24 th birthday. T disappeared for some days while we were laying low a few cities further south, I thought it was drugs or whatever. It wasn’t. He came back with a gift in the ugliest paper wrapper ever seen… It was a Super 8, the filmmaker camera, you know?”

The girl nods in agreement forgetting he can’t see. Michael seems to not care, the noises indicate he’s trying to get more comfortable on the floor despite still wearing a suit and dress shoes. He snorts to himself again.

“He convinced me to go on a trip without telling me where the fuck we were going, of course. We kept jacking cars and moving northwest while I filmed stuff just for the hell of it and before we knew, we were in Oregon. The dogshit Futo we had broke down in this tiny community slash ghost town called Brothers. At this point, I’m already pissed off and T finally tells me he’s taking me to see the ocean.” his voice gets smaller so she brings the ear closer to the door. “The ocean. I had seen many lakes, ponds, waterfalls, but not the ocean and that was something I’ve always wanted. For some reason, he remembered. It was… some of the best days of my life.”

“You looked so happy.”

“I was. Those weeks it felt as if we were just two normal people and nothing hurt us or lacked or whatever. It was just right and good and easy. Easy to just... Be.”

“That’s why I can’t understand Ludendorff.” she looks at the door as if he could see her, frowns at the random little piece of wood missing near the center.

“I know sweetie, but I-I can’t explain it.” The voice is muffled which means he’s rubbing the face tiredly for a hundred times that day. “I kept those things to remind myself, but I don’t know how to…”

“Go back to that person you were before? Yeah. I feel this too. It’s so tiring, isn’t it dad? Pretending is so hard… It’s scary to open up and be vulnerable, but I don’t want us to pretend anymore. I want to be honest.”

“That’s good sweetie, that’s really good.”

“I-I need help and I'm sorry for being mean... And lying and for being weak, I-I'm sorry.”

“You're not weak, Tracey, you're just exhausted from dealing with this illness by yourself for all this time. But baby, I promise we’ll get through this, alright? You’ll get healthy again, we’ll be with you along the way. I’ll try to be better. Fuck,  _ I’ll be better _ . I’m sorry, Trace.”

Tracey chuckles and shakes the head, mindlessly twirling the straw inside the empty glass, wipes the tears.

“What?”

"I wanna believe this so bad, dad. It's just... " she shrugs and sniffs to keep the nose from running. “I heard sorry before…”

“Did you just quote yourself?”

“Wait,” she stops, takes the head of the wall to frown. “Did you watch my Fame or Shame performance?”

“Of course I did. Gotta admit the song was catchy. The choreography, however… I’m pretty sure you copied from your ballet school play, that one when you danced to Radio Gaga?”

“Oh my God, do you actually remember that?”

“You spun so much you went flying off the stage, almost broke your nose, cried the entire way hom-Oof!” Michael almost falls behind when Tracey opens the door and throws herself at him for a hug. “Hey, easy with your old man.”

“I love you so, so, so much, dad.”

“We’ll be fine sweetie, we’ll be fine.”

Tracey doesn’t even mind that he doesn’t say it back or how he’s barely holding her, just snuggles in between his arms and tries to make herself as small as possible. Basking in the familiarity of his smell and heartbeat, she closes the eyes feeling warm and fuzzy once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the bird song mentioned is Alouette, a popular french-language Canadian children's song (according to wikipedia)


	19. Amanda, september 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw - brief mention of past suicidal thoughts

“How’s your sister?”

Trevor's voice startles Amanda making her drop the glass of kale juice on the counter. “For fucks sake Trevor!”

“I don’t see her in the framed pictures around the house...” avoiding to look at him, she hurries to take the now empty cup to the sink, comes back with the sponge and a washcloth to clean the mess while he stands there watching her so intently it makes her skin tingle. “Angel, wasn’t it?”

“Emily is fine, thanks for your concern. We lost contact after moving. My parents say she and her family are doing great.”

Trevor hisses but keeps whatever remark he had to himself. Instead, he focuses on opening and closing the big jar in front of him and Amanda does another travel to the sink to twist the cloth clean under the running water before coming back.

“I went there, you know… Their house.”

Finally, he gets her attention and their eyes meet. If it wasn't for the sound of zombies growling coming from Jimmy’s TV upstairs he would have heard her gulping down harshly. Amanda decides to let him talk first and work around it with what information he had.

“It was empty, but you knew that already, right? You guys were never there.”

“The FIB decided it was better to relocate them too. The plan was-” he’s shaking the head, already catching up the lie. The way he was so good at it only made her angrier. “I could have sent you to a trap, Trevor! It would have been so easy to tell the pigs the address and have you caught as they wanted…”

“So why didn’t you?”

She looks down at the water dripping from the counter and starting to make a pool on the floor next to her feet. It reminds her of the rain rolling down the windshield of her sister's dark green Regina all those years ago, their father had fallen asleep in the passenger seat after they left the graveyard.

By her side under the marquise, Emily was typing on her cellphone with one hand, the other took the cigarette up to the lips from time to time. Amanda was smoking too or at least she was trying to because people always said it helped with stress. Having just buried a guy she met only a handful of times, in a grave that had her husband's name on it while the FIB was handing their new Rockford Hills mansion keys to him, a man that was still pretty much alive and well, had been the peak of stress in her life so far.

Emily giggled and earned a disapproving stare from her. They were supposed to be sad after all.

“My bad.” she dropped the cigarette on the floor and stepped on it with the black heels, blew smoke upwards and spun to look inside the pharmacy. “Good Lord, mamma is still in the queue. I’m going to slap someone and hurry things up, okay?”

Nodding, Amanda heard her go while trying to take another puff. It didn’t work, she still hated it. Stepping on it to put the burning tip down, Amanda didn't notice she wasn’t alone anymore until she was yanked away towards the small space in between the buildings.

There was a hand covering her mouth to keep the screams muffled and fighting to get out of the man’s vicious grip was doing close to nothing. When they were deep enough into the alley and her brain was doing the best to come up with a plan so things wouldn’t end up like that after everything, he let her go. With a fast move, Amanda grabbed a bottle from a garbage can and smashed on the wall to use the broken glass as a weapon. She turned around to face the aggressor only to see he was sobbing.

“Trevor?”

The hood of the jacket had fallen off to reveal not the gross hair her daughter loved to braid those days, but a bald head. The dumb mustache was gone as well along with all the stubble to leave behind a bunch of little cuts in its place. She had never seen him so pale, so ill-looking and the eyes… They were void. It made her shiver. Amanda knew at that moment that an empty stare would hunt her for as long as she lived. To keep from being sucked into them, she took a step back. That made him sob again and on a quick move, he hugged her.

Trevor hugged her so tight it was as if he was drowning and by the way he was bawling, it could be possible he’d end up doing just that. His entire body was shaking from head to knees so the only thing she could do to keep both of them from falling was letting go of the bottle and put the arms around him too. The maternal part of her brain, automatically programmed to respond to that type of despair cry, was triggered without her even realizing, it made her rub his back gently.

“Here, it’s okay.”

That had only made him cry harder, close the hands into fists on her coat with so much strength it pulled the collar behind enough to slightly hurt her neck. He turned into mumbling chaos with words that didn’t connect or made any sense whatsoever. Amanda could barely understand most of it, only one of them was clear –  _ Michael _ .

Having to suddenly deal with the consequences of Michael’s decisions took her by surprise. Seeing the degrading state Trevor was after just a few days, feeling his heartbreaking with every sob reverberating from his chest to hers on that awkward hug, hearing his hopeless agony, his raw grief… It overwhelmed her. It made her feel sick to her core. She was disgusted with herself, with Michael, with how far they were having to go.

So Amanda cried too, this time for real. The woman rested the head against his while biting down the sincere  _ ‘I’m sorry’ _ she wanted to say, but couldn’t ever let out. Squeezing the eyes shut as hard as she could, she reminded herself of the reasons why that had to happen. They were doing that for their family and that was all that matters, their family. Michael was proving what his priority was and how his place was with her and the kids. Nothing else. Just them. Family. Their family.

It was with that in mind that Amanda found the strength to put the palms against his chest and pull their bodies apart. Trevor cleaned the nose at the sleeve of the jacket like he was as old as Jimmy, she wiped her own tears and resisted the urge to check if there was some snot on her shoulder.

“W-What are we going to do ‘M-Manda? Witho-out him?”

“I’m going to stay with my parents for a while…” she lied easily, adjusting the clothes. “Going back home would be too much right now.”

“Yeah, s-sure… I want to see the kids, but I don’t know if I- If I’ll be able to-”

He put the hand over his heart, pressed the lips together to try keeping the sobbing from escaping and shook the head violently. Trevor started hitting the side of the head with the palm repeatedly and only stopped when Amanda grabbed his arm.

“Trevor, listen to me.” looking as lost as a little kid, he obeyed with attention. “You need to disappear. There were cops at the funeral, they’re everywhere looking for you so you need to go. Do you understand?”

“Where? I don’t have anything, Amanda. I don't have anyone…”

"Okay," she closed the eyes for a second trying to ignore the guilt twisting inside her guts. “What about Canada? You can go back there, lay low for a while.”

“Maybe I should just kill myself…”

The woman followed his eyes to the broken bottle at their feet and before he could act and slit his own throat in front of her, she kicked it away to the street. The last thing she needed was to witness that, to have it replaying in her mind non stop, hunting her like his eyes. Amanda knew it could still happen at some point by the way he was looking and talking, but she felt like she couldn’t take that as her problem. The priority was the kids, Michael and their family. That's what she kept repeating to herself.

"I'm so scared I'm going to forget his voice and the way he smells and the shapes of his scars and his birthmarks I-I can't forget it, I can't!"

“Trevor…” she thought about Michael's silence, the vacant eyes lost in memories staring out the window the last time they saw each other at the safe house the FIB had him hiding. “If the memories keep him alive for you that's why you have to try to keep going, isn't it?”

“There’s some fucking problem going on here?”

Emily appeared at the alley entry without shoes and a hand inside the coat pocket where each of her keys was probably lodged in between the fingers, ready to cut the face of whoever she needed to punch to save her sister. Amanda raised the hand to stop her in place. They exchanged a brief look before her attention went back to the man.

“I have to go. I…” the words got stuck, the hand that was unconsciously reaching to touch his arm close itself into a fist and fell back down. “Goodbye, Trevor.”

She walked past him, chin up and eyes looking straight ahead until Emily passed an arm around her shoulders while adjusting the feet back into the heels to walk them back to the car. On the way home to get the kids ready for the flight in a few hours, the woman wondered if Michael would get into the plane with them if he saw the state Trevor was and closed the eyes to let a deep breath out, too scared of the answer to keeping wondering. She decided that moment would be another one between her and Trevor to be kept as a secret. When her sister held the Redwood pack to her, Amanda accepted it again and rolled the window down to feel the cold breeze of North Yankton she swore she wouldn’t ever miss and managed to finish the entire cigarette.

Nine years later, the glorious sun is illuminating her kitchen, the reflection from the pool paints random shapes on the walls, she’s looking amazing in her tennis practice attire. She would still have a cigarette if she could.

“I should have got you caught…” Amanda can’t look at him and see what all the pain had turned him into, the damage that their lies had done to an already broken man. “You wouldn't be here right now, ruining everything.”

“Hey, don’t blame me if real life isn’t going as Pretty Woman as you’d like to.”

“I’m sure that to you it’s more like that one movie with River Phoenix where the guy is kinda fucked up in the head, has a bunch of mommy issues and it’s on the road with his buddy Scott. Then he falls in love with him, but Scott doesn’t love him back, not enough to stay anyway.” Amanda starts to wipe the counter again, letting the anger take over the sadness. “He dumps him to be with the girl and you know how it ends, Trevor? I think you do.”

She throws the cloth at the sink, doesn’t even mind it knocks some of the cleaning supplies inside of it too. Her eyes are back at the man as the two slip back into the same competition from so many years ago like it hasn't been a day. The problem is that it has been a day, more than three thousand days, so why does Amanda still feel like she doesn’t have much of an upper hand against him? As if in this eternal tug of war the red mark was just barely on her side of the field and how if she pulled it again, all it was going to do is break, send her to the ground.

No. She had ten years of Michael to herself, ten years of memories Trevor wouldn't ever be able to taint with his dirty hands. Ten years filled with even the most ordinary everyday moments with Michael she knew he would kill to have, like holding hands at the fair, getting a dog for the kids, completely hating the fancy food of the most expensive restaurant they could find for their first marriage birthday in Los Santos and going straight to Burger Shot after, spending the day cuddling in the boat. There were also the big ones like Tracey’s graduation and the news about Michael’s mom passing away.  _ She _ had that, not him.

Amanda knew in the back of her head she was looking past the numerous bad parts where they couldn’t stand each other and how Michael had turned into something she couldn’t ever really grab despite how much she reached for it because after all, despite everything, he was there, with her. Not with him, but with  _ her _ . As if he was reading her mind, Trevor shakes the head.

“The funniest part Amanda, is that you really believe this bullshit, don’t ya? You think you won something. That he chose you.”

It’s so sudden that she wonders if she had said something out loud. The light chuckle he let out makes her skin crawl, but Amanda doesn't let it show.

“Ten years and two kids later seems pretty solid in my books. Just like the four divorce papers, he threw in the trash acknowledging we're on this together for life and how much he appreciates and loves me enough to still want to be here.”

“Does he, though? What about all the whores he has been fucking on the side? All in different shapes and sizes as if he was looking for something…”

“We both made mistakes and our marriage has its problems, yes. You would know real relationships face challenges if someone could look at you and see something worth loving.”

Trevor slams the hand against the counter so hard the jars click together and the appliances shake. Amanda does a quick scan through the surroundings just to have an escape route if worst comes to worst, however, the woman holds her ground. He growls between closed teeth before meeting her stare again.

“Michael…”

“ _ My husband _ left you. Our family was just fine working on the issues to find our center again before you show up to shit all over it.”

“Center? You’re going insane too!” he opens the arms and steps back with raised eyebrows. “That’s what you consider a happy loving relationship? The center is somewhere in between sticking his dick on random girls and letting you remodel the kitchen? Or beating some guy into a pulp and going to therapy, is that it? Should he have to try so hard to fit in if it was so effortless to be with you?”

“Why am I not surprised you think it’s too much of me to ask him not to murder people or rob shit now that we have everything?” Amanda throws the hands up with wide eyes. “What an awful person I’m! Trying to keep my husband out of trouble.”

“You want him to be something he’s not! You can’t love Michael for who he really is, can you?” Trevor gets closer again, eyes burning into hers. “You barely even know anything about him. This fabricated version of the person he wishes he could be is all you get, all you ever got…”

“Shut the fuck up, Philips…”

“You can only touch his surface, you wouldn't be able to stomach what’s inside, would ya? The problem with your marriage and the reason why Michael keeps drifting away is that he yearns to be consumed just as much as I'm always fucking starving…"

“I told you to shut the fuck up, Trevor!”

“He’s not lost is he, Amanda? He never really was lost. He’s just looking for me.”

Her hand hits his face so hard it tingles, the body’s shaking with pent up stress. The scream scratches her throat. “Get out of my house!”

“Hmm," Trevor rubs the cheek and smirks, lick the lips. "I missed the sexual tension between us too.”

“You’re absolutely disgusting.”

“That’s not what your husband seemed to think when he was staying at my place…”

This time when Amanda's hands go down to slap him once more, his fingers wrapped around her wrist so tightly it hurts even before he slams it against the countertop. Her other hand goes to his chest as she tries to push him away with all her strength, cursing and fighting. “Get out! Get the fuck out of here! Go back to hell where you crawled from and leave us alone, you fucking sick bastard! I hate you, I hate you, I-”

“I know.”

“I  _ hate _ you… I-” her forehead meets his chest and she squeezes the eyes shut to keep the stupid tears from falling. Amanda squirms in another attempt to free herself that only brings her closer and she tries to convince herself that isn’t a hug. “Why am I not-I'm so tired...”

“I know.” Trevor rubs the middle of her back, resting the head on top of hers. "It's okay."

The floor cracks and someone lets out a confused hum. “Mom?”

“Fucking let go of me!” taking advantage of the distraction that makes Trevor relax the grip around her, Amanda gives a final push to set herself free. She wipes the tears away on a quick move. "Hey, Jimmy."

“Is everything okay here?” Jimmy looks at them with widened eyes, index pointing from one to the other. “Why were you hugging my mom and why were you slapping uncle T?”

“Don’t worry about it, bub. Trevor’s about to leave.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, Trevor, you are.”

He smirks and taps the counter lightly, messes Jimmy’s hair up while passing through him on the way out, singing a goodbye before closing the door. Amanda spends the next half hour explaining to her son nothing had happened despite the fact he had clearly at least heard the slap and God knows what else from the whole exchange.

“It was just an argument, honey.”

“About pops?” she sighs as answer, grabs a glass and a bottle of wine, opening it with eyes lost on the dinner table flowers. “Geez, dad really does make all of us miserable, huh?”

“James! Don’t talk like that about your father.” he raises his hands in surrender after the woman gives him a disapproving look. “You’ll understand how hard it is to be an adult one day.”

“Mom, I’m 20.”

“That doesn't make you an adult, does it? You have no real-life experience from your bedroom, besides… You’ll always be my baby.”

She reaches to cup his face sweetly, stoking the round cheek with the thumb on a gentle caress. It makes him give the tiniest giggle and squeeze the eyes for a second just like he used to do at age 2 and seeing that makes her chest feel tight with nostalgia. In the next second, Jimmy gets up complaining as if she had embarrassed him in front of an entire audience, shakes her head before going for the cabinet where they kept the snacks.

“Uhm…” he’s already chewing and walking back towards the stairs. “I’ll be leveling up on Righteous Slaughter 7 if you need me. Also, can we get pizza tonight?”

“Sure thing bub, whatever you want.”

“Thanks, mom!” he shouts from upstairs.

She raises the bottle for the empty kitchen in cheers and takes a huge sip straight from it. Taking off the pink sports visor to rub the forehead, Amanda stares at the faint bruise at the other wrist as the conversation replays on her head.

He was right, she would never be able to fully get her husband. Before getting pregnant she had fantasies of being his partner in crime, joining him or be more hands-on may be helping as she could with some of the phases of a job. After the babies, she dreamed she could be something like Beyoncé in Upgrade U, but she found out quickly she couldn’t. All the ruthless, heartless crimes that come with robberies that you usually get distracted while looking at the jewels and cash… It wasn’t for her. Amanda couldn’t cross some lines or follow Michael as he did. Trevor however, could shamelessly walk freely to the dark corners of him and would do it devotedly, just because it’s him.

Despite everything, Amanda knew Trevor didn’t blame her for not being able to. The relationship between her and Michael was never planned, the kids even less… Their family was a pipe dream that didn’t know how to really function, everybody just did their best trying to play their part. They had faked their death and now they were faking their lives too. Trevor understood that.

Amanda chugs the wine thinking how fucked up the situation was and always had been. Her fucking archenemy or whatever was the only one who could ever understand the ache enough to give her some comfort.

“Oh my God…” sitting by herself, the woman giggles and turns into a hysterical laugh when she realizes that Trevor Philips knew her better than anyone in that city and was the closest thing she had from a best friend since her sister. “I lost my mind!”

Staring blankly ahead, she reaches for the bottle again while wondering if coming to that realization had brought her closer to her center. Despite the lack of any conclusive answers, Amanda decides it’s only fair to drink to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Pretty Woman is a romantic comedy from 1990  
> \- the movie Amanda mentioned is My Own Private Idaho, a independent adventure drama from 1991


	20. Tracey, september 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw - mention of past suicide attempts

“Mind if I join you?”

Tracey shakes the head and hops to the side to give room so Trevor can sit at the front steps of the mansion next to her. They remain in silence for a moment, watching the random cars passing up and down on the other side of the fence. He looks back at her, reaches to softly rest the head on her head, thumb sliding on the patch of scalp visible in between the thin hair. She grunts in annoyance. That’s why she would never use the hair down.

“You’re starting a bold trend? Or should I say... Bald?”

“Ten years passed and I’m still trying to look like you...” he puts the hand over the chest pretending to be offended and they chuckle together. “Also, what the fuck, that’s the daddiest joke I’ve ever heard.”

“I’m a natural at it.”

She rakes the fingers through the hair trying to blindly arrange it in a way that covers the spots missing big chunks and sighs. Trevor knocks their shoulders together.

“You had an appointment today?”

“Yeah, had my second therapy session.”

“How was it?”

Tracey shrugs, looks down at the hands remembering the past few days that had been filled with visiting doctors with her mom to cover all the bases and start the treatment for real this time. She had another bad episode while Jimmy, Amanda and herself were away for a while after all those armed guys raided the mansion on Meltdown premiere night and tried to kill them so now things weren't dangerous anymore the process could start. It has been so demanding emotionally that it makes the girl feel heavy inside and out.

“I just… I don’t know. I was kinda expecting to leave the place feeling different already? Better? But I feel the same. Even sitting here my brain can’t stop telling me to- I don’t wanna be locked in a clinic! I had just started making plans for college and now… I don’t know.”

She hides the face behind the palms and breaths deep trying to keep from crying. Trevor wraps the arm around her to pull her into a tight side-hug, rubs her forearm in the same soothing way he used to do when she was a child.

“I never had the patience for this type of bullshit, maybe I was always past the point of fixing, but you're not. I’m not letting you give up on yourself before trying now that you have the support from everybody who loves you. And college isn’t going anywhere, you can always do that later.”

Tracey sits up straight again and drys the tears, nodding. He smiles and pokes the tip of her nose.

"Have you told your friends?"

"Yes... It was better than I expected. Kelsey cried a lot and wouldn't stop hugging me, Rachel said she's proud of me for getting proper treatment. Maisy still doesn't pick up my phone calls and Hannah's a fucking bitch. You know what she told me?'' The girl pulls a face and mocks the girl's voice. " _ 'I completely respect the lifestyle you chose, losing some pounds will do you great, girl!'  _ That fucking bitch."

"Do you want her gone? I can make it look like an accident..."

"No uncle T, I already took care of it." Trevor's eyes go wide with surprise and pride until she shakes the head. "Not like that! Hannah and I have known each other since 2005 and I still remember her password to Myspace, which means that I still have access to the pictures from her super emo phase. So if the online model portfolio she has been sending to big brands only has embarrassing photos of her 14 years old ugly face, oh well... Too bad for her, I guess."

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting, eh?" he says and Tracey recognizes something similar to the book Jimmy told her once but can't remember the name. "You did well. Fuck Hannah."

"Fuck Hannah." she echoes. "Even if the other girls reacted well, they still don't  _ get it _ , you know? I don't blame them for it! But... It's still, uhm, kinda lonely."

“Yeah, look, I’m too old to cut the drugs of my life, I’m pretty sure if I do, I’ll drop dead in a heartbeat,” they both laugh and something makes noises at the upper floor of the house, probably Eva cleaning the rooms. “But maybe, at least until you find friends who can relate, if I take a bit easier with the meth-”

“We could be support buddies? We both need better eating habits if you think about it. We could be accountability partners, keep checking on each other and ranting about how everything sucks in the world and shamelessly cry a lot because we’re both really into it, aren’t we? A couple of cry-babies.”

“We really are.”

“Yup... So, you wanna do it? Would you do it?”

“For you little moose, I would try.” Trevor raises the shoulders to the ears with a forced, innocent smile. “You know me, I’ll fuck it up at some point and smoke an entire huge rock, but… I can try to go easy on it.”

The girl nods excitedly now, bites the nails. “That’s actually perfect because it seems so impossible to get better right now and I know I'll fuck it up so many times too, but I’ll try. Really.”

“Can we have reward prizes?”

“Sure, as long as there are no soft drinks or spicy food or chocolate… My esophagus had better days.” Tracey smiles and hugs one of his arms to rest the head on his shoulder. “Oh my God, we can get tattoos! I'm actually excited now. Thanks, uncle T.”

“Not a problem, kiddo.”

“Can I ask you something?” A horn contest starts at the intersection near the house and they just listen to it until the drivers part with exchanged curse words. “Jimmy said he caught you and mom arguing in the kitchen the other day…”

“That little snitch.”

Trevor clicks the tongue and she feels him shaking the head side to side. Using the fingernail to peel off the baby lilac nail polish remaining at the corner of her ring finger, Tracey frowns.

“Nah, I threatened to drop his video game at the pool and he had to tell me. After having the TV destroyed by a chair he doesn't even risk it. But the fight... What was it about?”

“The usual.”

“Dad.”

“More times than not, hearing the truth is like being kicked in the balls. Well, you don’t know what that feels like, uhm… Like spending the entire night freezing while tied to a cactus and wearing nothing but an old pair of socks that match with your bucket hat.”

“Uhm, uncle T, I can’t say I know what that’s like either.”

“It’s a lot okay, just know that. It’s painful and makes you feel a bit silly.”

“Got it.” she moves to peel off the middle fingernail polish while poking a blister on the inside of her cheeks wondering if she should pressure him for a better answer or not. The girl almost holds the question in, but then remembers the therapist talking about not bottling up things and the words come out. “Jimmy said she slapped you and you- Would you, like…”

“Would I hurt your mom?”

She feels awful just by hearing it out loud because that was the dumbest thing. For a moment Tracey fears she had hurt Trevor with the insinuation he would ever cause harm to any of them and wonders if he was about to stand up, march outside those gates for another ten years or more. The idea seems so fucking real on her mind that she hugs his arm tighter to keep him in place. However, Trevor doesn’t seem to have any intention to move.

“Mothers are sacred Tracey. Nothing can ever replace the warmth of a mother and doesn’t matter how old you get, you’ll never get enough of that tenderness.” he rests the head on top of hers. “I would never make you go through life without yours.”

“That was dumb of me, I’m so, so, so sorry.”

“I know your mom and I are always bickering and trust me, it was a nightmare at first when she got with your father but… Amanda gave him something I would never be able to, not only physically, but this thing here…” he gestures around to the house, all that it's inside the fences and out in the city as Tracey looks at him. “And being fucking honest, I owe her a lot because when she birthed you, she gave me something too. My best friend."

At first Tracey starts tearing up simply because of the words, because that old broken piece of man, one of the most wanted and feared criminals, was unbelievably sweet for no reason, literally crying while wiping her face. But then her silent weeping turns into something way more urgent coming from somewhere deep inside the chest, something that had been asleep since the day she had watched that VHS tape from 1989, since the moment it clicked on her mind what could have been so big on the following years to change their lives, shift the relationship enough to culminate into them breaking apart on such a hurtful way.

The girl realizes she had been shaking her head violently when Trevor holds her face to try to make her look into his eyes, keeps asking what’s wrong. Tracey feels like she can’t breathe and her hands are shaking.

“When I was born I ruined everything. You guys were happy before, I saw the tape from that trip to the coast. You two were together and things were good. Dad was so happy and you were so happy and then I came along and he had to give up everything because of me." she gasps for air while holding on to his shirt. "I-I did this, didn’t I? I made him m-miserable! I made him leave you back then and then again in North Yankton, didn’t I? That’s why h-he can’t stand me! Because it’s all my fault! Mom was probably happier before me too.”

“Tracey, calm down. Look at me. Look at me, buttercup.” Trevor cleans up the tears and snot on her face as if it was nothing, there are tears rolling down his eyes too, but his face is completely serious. “You’re not responsible for anything that happened between me and your parents. We were all adults who made our own decisions, do you understand?”

“B-but…”

“Trace,  _ listen to me _ , it’s not your goddamn fault. You…” he takes a deep breath and rubs his face, looks up to the sky for a moment before looking back at her. “You're not a kid anymore so I'm going to tell you the honest truth about what happened after Ludendorff, okay?"

"Okay."

"I got close to dying many times, sometimes accidentally and sometimes on purpose. This one night I went to a railroad somewhere in Canada because well, nothing would stop a train, there wouldn't be anything left of me to save. I laid there, ready, waiting... Until explosions went off in the sky.”

"Victoria 's Day?”

“That Monday was May 23th and I couldn't do it.”

The girl pulls the sleeve of her jacket down to cover the thumbs, closes the hand into fists lightly pressing the fingernails into the palm and opens it again only to repeat the movement a couple of times trying to stop the trembling.

“I was so sure I had failed you once by letting your father die that I couldn’t do it, I couldn't kill myself on your birthday. It came to me how there was a debt to be paid to you before going away for good. A year had passed since all that shit and the pigs wouldn’t be looking for me there so I made my way back down to North Yankton but there was nothing to be found. I didn’t have a clue of what had happened to you and Jimmy. What if Amanda had remarried? What if the guy was like my stepfather? What if she was back stripping and you had to be by yourselves at some tiny heat-less trailer? What if you had to…”

Trevor punches the ground in between them and grunts like a madman. He’s about to hit his forehead with the hand when Tracey carefully puts her arms around his shoulders, feels him tensing up and quivering for a moment before calming down. He sighs and nods to let her know he’s fine so Tracey brings the hands to her knees again while he breathes in and out slowly before continuing.

"Not having anything to give, to offer or to leave behind, I decided to make from zero again so I came to Sandy Shores because it had an amazing potential for business, set a time frame and convinced myself that if nothing else, at least I would make money enough to put on my testament for you kids. If nothing else, I would have done something with my useless existence and you would have enough to do whatever you wanted… Go to college or snort an entire warehouse of coke.”

“You what?”

“Yeah. Every single penny I own. You two little shits are some of the richest people in this stupid city.” Trevor looks at her with wide eyes and raised eyebrows, clicks the tongue. “Now that’s clear that money is not a problem to this family, it might be time to redo the papers.”

Somehow the silly joke gets a giggle out of her. Passing the arms around him again, Tracey hugs him tightly with the head on his shoulder and doesn’t let go. Trevor pats her elbow and she feels the chuckle on his chest, however, when he talks his voice is soft and somber.

“Wanna know how many years I gave myself? Nine, just 8 months from here. So no, you didn’t ruin anything polkaroo, you stopped me from ending everything that night and then kept me alive for time enough so life could bring me right back to all of you before it was too late… Promise me you’ll remember this?"

“I promise. Do you promise me you won't try to kill yourself anymore?” her voice is a whisper as if talking that too loud would give it power somehow. "I know you had nothing else to lose back then, but now you have us, even if we're all fucking crooked as fuck."

He chuckles as Tracey holds the hand up, pinky out waiting for him. They lock their fingers together with a shared smile despite the two pairs of puffy eyes from all the crying.

“I love you millions, uncle T.”

“I love you too.”


	21. Michael, october 2013

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> time to come clean about things
> 
> oh and tw - brief allusion to cannibalism  
> and tw - brief mention of past suicide attempt

“So, should I start praying or something?”

With one arm resting outside the door and the other hand’s relaxed at the wheel, Trevor snaps out of whatever daydream he’s having and looks at Michael briefly as they make their way out of the Observatory parking lot. “What?”

“The Big One is done, we’re alone near a desert area with many good places to dispose of a body, you are actually quiet for once, the clicking sound from back there can be a shovel beneath those garbage bags…”

“Man, is your memory this bad? I’m literally just giving you a ride home because your car is running out of juice.”

“…This is it, huh?” Michael ignores him, keeps looking behind at the truck of the bed. “How are you going to do it? Will you dismember me? Eat some of it?”

Despite not even making it that far from the site where they met Lester to settle the details about money transfers, Trevor stops the car. It’s so sudden that Michael almost smacks the nose against the seat.

“I’m not in the mood to clean shit out of my car so if you’re too scared of hanging out with me, feel free to step out, porkchop.”

Michael doesn’t move. He knows his words made it seem like he wanted to run out to stay as far as possible from the other man, but the truth is that realizing they had just finished their last real transition as partners is making him feel funny. It was finally like coming to some sort of real conclusion after all they had been through. If life was a movie, soon the credits would roll up the screen while an upbeat track started playing until everybody went their separate ways. However, that’s not what would happen, was it? Nobody would scream  _ ‘AND CUT!’ _ so he could wave goodbye to everybody on stage and be happy ever after.

No, life would go on after the outcome of the conversation with Trevor that would wrap up all their complicated, fucking history. And then what? Where would he go from there? He would have to face and fix the rest of his life because it would keep going on, even without this part on it, the part it had Trevor.

The idea of not making out alive starts to sound tempting.

At his side, Trevor chuckle breaks the silence. He turns the engine off knowing it was time for talking. Real talking. Michael bet he also knows, just like he knows himself, that would be like pulling an entire mouthful of teeth all at once. At least the night view of the city is nice from where they are.

“That’s some interesting wet dreams, cupcake… It’s this some sort of new kink you developed along these nine years of drowning in guilt?”

“Fuck you. Not bringing this up any more wasn't part of the plan after The Big One was over? I thought we were moving on.”

“Are we?”

“I hope so... Aren't we?”

“Uhm, I guess?”

“T…” he looks at the other man who was currently licking his thumb to rub it against the dirty mirror before wiping it with the sleeve of an old plaid shirt. It reminds him of one they used to share many years ago when keeping track of what belonged to who became too irrelevant to care, it makes Michael smile. “Are you sure you don’t want my share from the job? You seriously need some new clothes.”

"Oh, but Mikey, now the retirement is official your lazy ass will get so fucking fat you’ll need liposuction to keep seeing your dick. So nah, you better keep the cash.”

“Come on, my dick is long enough to give me a couple of years before disappearing from sight like that.”

“You’re so addicted to lying you can’t even stop lying to yourself, can you, buddy?”

Michael flips him off and they laugh for a moment before falling back to silence. His eyes are focused at the city lights on a loose, meaningless count of how many blinking spots he can see. Trevor's eyes are on him, he can feel it and hates that it already feels like a goodbye. He breathes in deeply and then out decided to give his best shot to sound as honest as possible about it.

“Look, T… I was in a tough situation and I fucked up and I apologize, okay?”

He turns the face to look at Trevor. Michael expects him to laugh, shake his head with a frown or give any of the many other reactions he had displayed previously after listening to his attempts of saying sorry. Excuses, like he would call them. However, instead of raging, the man smiles.

“Okay.”

“ _ What?! _ ” Michael turns the neck too fast to look at him; it makes a popping sound. " _ Okay?! _ "

“Yeah, I accept your apology.”

“You’re joking, right?”

Trevor pushes the head off the headset to look straight at him looking confused, he chuckles with no humor and opens the arms slightly with the palms up. “I’m not joking. Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to accept your apology so we can move on with our lives for once and for all?”

For reasons he doesn’t understand, Michael feels like he had been slapped in the face really fucking hard. It makes his blood boil with anger and his skin burn like a fever, so much his jaw pops loudly, the hands curl into fists that meet the dashboard with a noisy thud. Right before his eyes, with that four words that left the other man's mouth, they were parting ways for good. The ties he had with Trevor were untangled, undoing by itself this time, like it was nothing, like they haven't been glued together as one. By the moment he stepped out of the car at his mansion’s driveway, he would be free. The idea, rationally, should bring him nothing but joy and relief, but still… Was that how things were supposed to go?

“Why?”

“Why what, Michael?” he snarls back, clearly getting angry too with Michael's resistance to simply appreciate his attempt to be considerate. “What?”

“Why are you forgiving me? Like… How?”

“Uhm, okay porkchop, let me get this right. After nagging me about me nagging you for all the shit you pulled, you’re pissed off because I said I forgive you?”

“Yes, you’re damn right, I’m pissed off!” Michael gets out and slams the car door closed so hard the hinges, he punches it too just for good measure. “I fucked you over! I fucking lied! I worked with the Feds, took you to an ambush, got Brad killed despite aiming the target to your back then I put him on a grave and said it was me for ten years! How can you just… Look past that and forgive me so fast? How can you forgive me at all?”

Trevor sits still with a blank expression. When he can’t stand looking at him anymore, Michael pushes himself away from the pickup to pace back and forth on the grass feeling the heartbeats hammer his chest with anger.

“And not just to you, but look what I have done to Tracey! I’ve heard you two talking the other night. I destroyed my kids!”

“She’s going to b-”

“No, don’t give me this bullshit! I never understood why Amanda would forgive me for all the shit I’ve done to her, but you… I thought for sure that if anybody would have the guts to hold me responsible for my mistakes and make sure I pay for them, it was you. God, you should put a bullet through my head! And not… Forgive me. I don’t deserve forgiveness, T!”

“Mikey…”

“Don’t talk to me like that!” The soft tone Trevor usually used against his skin on every loving memory he has makes him stop in his track, shaking the head firmly. “Don’t fucking use this voice. I-I never deserved anything from you. Not the worshiping or the loyalty, the fucking way you looked at me… As if I was some sort of god, the way it always made me feel like one, made me want to be that person you saw while looking at me. I was not! I never was. I was always a turd.”

“That’s funny!” Trevor steps out of the car too and walks closer to him, opening the arms in exaggerated gestures. “You’re always blaming me... Now you’re blaming me for loving you because it made you feel pressured to be something that doesn't fit your perception of yourself. That’s hilarious Michael because you’ve always done the same to me!”

“I d-”

“Oh, but you did. The difference sugar tits, is that you always demonized me.” he’s close enough to poke Michael in the chest. “Hell on earth, huh? The unhinged psychopath! The monster spit out from some unholy hole in the ground, a rabid dog who should be put down. Crazy, deranged, lunatic, insane. It worked out well didn't it? Because every mistake I made would put you in the place of the good guy, the merciful hero that  _ you _ always wished you were.”

Trevor backs down again, squeezes the eyes shut and hits the head with the palm of the hand a couple of times before growling. Michael waves off some mosquitoes trying to deny and invalidate those arguments on his head before bringing it up, but Trevor is not done yet.

“I know there are things wrong with me and I hate it, Mikey. I hate that I don’t know how not to be like this. But I’m not the devil, I’m not a force of nature, I’m not indestructible… I'm just a fucked up guy and you know that! If anybody in this damned world got to  _ know _ me, the person is you and still, you chose to do what you did. For what? To prove a point?”

Michael takes some steps behind too, runs his fingers through the hair and turns to the city. Trevor wasn’t wrong. He had done his best over the years to turn his best friend into this sort of inhumane being. At first to try to detach and feel normal and then later to try to convince himself that the man had been through enough already and didn’t deserve to rot in a jail cell or a mental institute. All that while knowing Trevor was a man full of scars who had never learned how to deal with his own emotions properly, which was not that different from him, from the baggage he carried from his broken childhood, from his dad.

“I’m turning into him… My father was right, T.”

“Let me stop you right there. Your father’s scum of the earth, alright? He didn't know jack shit about who you were back then and definitely not about who you are now. All that bastard has ever done was project himself onto his family and beat the shit out of them, so no, he wasn't right.”

Projecting, was exactly what he was doing, just like he had learned back at his parent's home. All this time trying to run away from it only took him right back to his own purgatory, living inside him all along. The lump in his throat was making the attempts to keep from hyperventilating really hard. Trevor gets closer again, puts the hand on his shoulder to squeeze it lightly when he recognizes his anxiety, trying to keep him grounded.

“I know deep down you are still the Michael Townley I knew because I’ve seen it! Even if now you’re stuck on this dumb fucking shell, man, it-”

“That’s why you’re wrong, I  _ am _ the shell, Trevor! I fucking sold my soul when I sold you in North Yankton! That guy you’re always talking about, he died in Ludendorff.”

Michael rests against the side of the Bodhi while patting the pockets for a cigarette. After sighing deeply and loudly with the face pointing to the sky, Trevor joins him.

“You’re so fucking stubborn,” he complains under the breath and elbows Michael, holds the open hand between them. “Give me one.”

“Since when do you smoke?”

“Since I told your daughter I would try to go easy on crystal, thought you heard that part of our private conversation too.”

"Look at us," He picks up one from the pack and puts it on the lips waiting for the lighter. Michael lights it up for him. "Killing a dart together, eh?”

“Fuck you.”

Lighting his own, Michael smirks proudly of himself for the Canadian joke. He throws the almost empty pack inside the car without being apprehended by Trevor that is too lost in thoughts while looking to the sky where the clouds had started cleaning up to reveal a deep indigo mantel freckled with stars and taking a long puff. Michael gets lost in the sight of the slight bob of his Adam’s apple, the brief licking of lips right before they part to breathe out the smoke. It’s ridiculous how that makes his insides turn and twitch in excitement. Watching Trevor smoke cigarettes always turned him on, but now wasn’t a good time to pop a boner so he looks away.

They smoke in silence for a while. Trevor only bitches about the Redwoods once. Michael’s considering lighting another to himself when he sighs again.

“I’m not completely out of my mind, you know, at least not all the time. I see that you were forced to make a decision back then. You had the kids and you had missed so much of their growing up already… I understand that. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to them either. The problem is why didn’t you tell me?”

“What, that the deal with the Feds was I had to get you killed if I didn’t want to get the time?”

“Yes! Michael… I loved you! I loved your children! You might not be able to grasp why, but you know that if you had asked me  _ anything _ I would have fucking done it for you.” he turns to face him, eyes widen and puts one arm at the side of the truck. “We could have dealt with it together! Lester could have thought of something to help. Fuck, I could have been the one faking my death!”

“I couldn’t risk it, T!”

“You just didn't have the balls!” he screams in his face, vibrating. “You never fucking had it, you spineless asshole!”

“Dave said the only way it would work for me was if-”

“DaveDaveDaveDaveDave!” Trevor drops the cigarette bud into the ground and steps violently onto it. “Fuck Dave! Did you have to suck his cock too? Was that part of the deal? I bet it’s a stubby sad little dick all crumpled up just like his face.”

“Hey, at least it never gave me a lockjaw or made me gag.”

“ _ Are you fucking kidding me right now? _ ”

“Relax, it was a joke.” Michael tries not to smirk and must fail because he can hear the other man snarling. “Look, they were rigid with the terms. Norton had this plan all pretty much structured already so if I would even try to suggest any changes it-”

“Bullshit. That’s complete bullshit. Do you forget that I know you better than anyone? The Ludendorff plan has your name all over it, sugar tits!” Despite the angry face, Trevor's eyes are shiny with tears now, searching for something on his and the voice becomes a whisper. “You abandoned me. You should have just killed me yourself. God, being blown up on a gas tank would hurt me less, but no, you fucking left me!”

Michael looks away and rubs the face, throws the head back for a moment before taking the last puff of his cigarette. Fucking Trevor, right again and proving that he was even more of a scumbag than he thought before. Could he maintain his cool this time while Trevor poked around the buzzing wasp nest in his chest with a stick? Could he win just this one time?

“I don’t know what you want from me here, T.”

“I want the truth! Why did you do it?”

“For the last time, I had to keep my family-”

“We already went over this part, you old fuck! What I want to know is why you did it in the way you did.”

“It was getting too much! You were getting out of control with the drugs and stuff…”

“No.”

“…You had no boundaries whatsoever and I was sick of looking out for you…”

“Nope again.”

“Are you going to keep refusing the reasons until something matches whatever is the thing that you want to hear?”

“I’ll keep refusing the lies until you give me the fucking honest truth!”

He rolls the neck uncomfortably, watches a car pass by on the nearest road to disappear in the tunnel. Out of ego or guilt, Michael’s heart had been pounding so hard since Trevor had said how he would have done anything for him back in the day that it makes him wonder if this isn’t the end of him. Maybe he’ll die tonight after all. Just like Dave told it was going to be all those years before in the middle of the Spring of 2004 when they met.

Michael remembers how it started. He knew it was a bad idea as soon the plan to steal some money from the town’s somewhat famous outlaw twins came out of Brad's mouth, in big part because it was him saying it. What could he expect though? Stupid people would always come up with stupid ideas. He had said no from his stool at the bar before even hearing the part where they would surprise the guys by taking their money, but not handling them the drugs. Brad sulked, said he was sick of Lester’s obsessing with everything about jobs and Michael controlling personality. Trevor growled, said Brad’s idea would be a fun change of pace,  _ ‘spontaneous’ _ was the word he used.

Both wanted to do it and wanted to do it fast so only one hour later and their Asea was pulling up to the alley near a warehouse they were supposed to make the exchange. Michael repeated how dumb the idea was again but it was in vain. Brad popped his bubblegum, leaving the car with a bag full of anything but drugs and before Trevor could follow, he held his arm.

“What?”

“T, we don’t need to do this kind of shit anymore, not since Lester. Things are working out, we have a good life… Come on, let’s just go to the safe house and-”

“No!  _ You _ have a good life while all  _ I _ do is lick the crumbs of it hoping it will keep me from starving until the next time you feel like dropping me some more.” he pulled the arm out of his grip. “It’s just two hillbillies and not about the drugs at all, it’s… You’ve been calling the shots for years Mikey, if you can’t be here if you’re not bossing us around then-”

“Then maybe I should go, huh?”

Trevor didn’t answer, just frowned and pressed the lips on a thin line before being called by Brad who was waiting, arms open with the palms up as if asking why they were taking them so long. He jumped out of the car and pressed the coat tighter to the body while walking away with the other man towards the deal. Michael cursed, punched the dash repeatedly and so hard the lid fell open and his knuckles started bleeding.

He thought about leaving, jumping into the driver seat and turning the car around to the safe house or maybe all the way home to his family by this point. Michael couldn’t decide what he hated more about the whole situation until his eyes fell on Brad's ridiculous yellow hair crossing the parking lot ahead, patting Trevor’s shoulder and rubbing his back. Fucking Brad Snider. It was his fault. He was the one turning Trevor against him, putting on that silly head all these ideas about Michael being a controlling person who only used him for his own benefits. That was not true, that was not what he did at all.

Michael thought about leaving, that the whole thing was doomed from the start and there was no way in hell that deal wouldn’t end in a blood bath. Michael thought about leaving and he should. He had a wife and two kids to go home to, three people who needed him, depended on him, counted on him to be there for them for years and years forward. Still, Michael couldn’t leave. He didn’t want to leave. Not without Trevor.

Before it’s too late, he jumped out of the car and ran across the parking lot to reach the others at the doorstep of the warehouse. Brad seemed surprised and not amused by his appearance, but Trevor smiled so big it made Michael’s heart skip a beat. “So, where do you guys want me for this?”

Trevor barked enough at Brad to convince him to stay outside and watch for any movement after the idiot proved how his dumb brain couldn’t contain information for more than fifteen seconds. He had the whole lines of what he was supposed to repeat to the guys inside wrong while Michael was able to be extremely charming and convincing as usual. Michael was proud of showing off his skills to piss him off and Trevor seemed to be just as happy, slapping Brad at the nape of the neck and taking the bag off him.

Inside, the transaction went bad and went bad quickly. Of course, the twins weren’t alone but with five other guys, of course, fucking Brad was nowhere to be found when they needed him, of course, they had an ugly fight. Michael knew that with no guns, outnumbered and hurt there was no way they would survive that, especially with the boss's hunger for revenge for being taken by idiots, but side by side, they fought.

For most of the time, the twins just watched pleased like the two sadists assholes they were as the others took turns throwing punches between Michael and Trevor. It was mostly punching at first until Michael knocked one of them out and really upset the rest. The next thing he knew, he was hit at the right side of the head with something he couldn’t identify, something that was heavy enough to make him too dizzy to keep standing on his feet. 

At that moment, despite being held by a chokehold, Trevor had roared in anger. He punched the guy’s groin to free himself and grab the one who was about to kick Michael, fumbling with the man to the floor a few steps from him. The man screamed and kept screaming in agony as loud as he could, so loud all the others stepped away to stand closer to the walls. Michael couldn’t see what was happening from where he was and besides the yelling, he only managed to hear a sound between a munch and teeth-gritting mingling with a buzz from his head from the blow.

When Trevor moved away the man was dead and by the time he stood up to check on Michael everybody else was running out the exit door.

“Mikey? Can you stand up?”

“Yeah, what…” he accepted Trevor’s help and immediately held his head feeling the blood sticky on the hair. Trevor was covered in blood too, especially around the lips. “What did you-Did you…”

“I dealt with it, okay? We’re alive and they’re gone.”

Taking back the guns that had been taken from them, left behind in their hurry, Trevor tells Michael he’s going to find Brad and asks if he’ll be able to get to the car by himself. Michael wanted to tell him to just forget about the other. Fuck him. They needed to get out of there, away from the dead man with a chewed neck and face, if the cops end up putting all that on Brad well, good riddance. However, he knew that’s not going to happen. Trevor didn’t work like that, he had at least some morals, even if the guy didn’t deserve any sympathy.

He was at the parking lot with one hand over the head and the other near the gun, luckily near enough to point it at the guy who came from behind a van as soon as he heard a movement. Michael knew it was bad when the man stepped into his line of sight with the hands already up, palms open. Judging by the posture and the classic chevron mustache, he was certain that man was a cop. To his chagrin, the quality of the clothes and shoes gave away he wasn’t just a simple officer.

“Mr Townley…” Michael let go of the head, held the gun more steady. “I’m unarmed and have no radio. I can show you if you want.” he didn’t have the strength to reply, the shock of being caught near a crime scene from a job he didn’t want to be at while being all beat up and alone washed over him like the sensation of being thrown into a frozen lake. Still, the man slowly opened the coat to prove he was telling the truth. “I’m agent David Norton…”

“FIB? Fuckin’ A. Are your buddies going to join us soon or should we start the party without them?”

“There’s nobody but me here and there’s a reason for that. Mr. Townley, I believe we can help each other.”

Trevor would have shot the bastard in between the eyes in a heartbeat and moved on with the night, but Michael didn’t want another body on his tab so, as he considered the options to get rid of the agent, the man kept spilling words that snaked their way into his brain.

“I don’t think so, man.” Michael gave a quick look around to check for other agents, lights, or sight of Trevor. He cursed under his breath and rolled the neck while staring back at the Fed in front of him. “Why would you want to help me?”

“Because you’re one of the most wanted bank robbers of the entire Midwest, a capable man with impressive skills, a man of refined and well-planned heists that make the entire office break their heads for answers. You’re not an animal. You’re rational, logical and this…” he pointed to the warehouse. “This isn’t you.”

“Gee, thanks. Would you like an autograph or something? I can sign on a Franklin for you to show off on the next potluck with the boys.” he snorted, wishing he didn’t because it made his head pound inside the skull.

“Well, it’s true that me, just like many others, dreamed about the day we would get face to face with you but I gotta be honest, Michael… I expected to be intimidated. You know what I see, though? A jumpy man covered in his own blood with wide, jittery eyes. You seem  _ scared _ . Whatever you realized today scared you, it made you ask yourself where it’s going to stop.”

“Well, I expected a fucking army so I guess we’re both disappointed. Besides, you don’t know shit about anything.”

“I’ve been watching you, Michael. You, Amanda, Tracey and little Jimmy. It’s a beautiful family and a cozy little trailer house in 926, 5 th Ave, right?”

“You son of a bitch,” he pulled the safety off and tried to focus in the middle of the agent's chest while keeping the distance to avoid being disarmed by him. “You threaten my family one more time and-”

“It isn’t a threat, Michael. It doesn’t have to be. If you help me get what I need, I’ll make sure you and your family have a fresh beginning with nothing to fear or worry about, far away from here.”

“How-”

Michael could hear Trevor calling for him from somewhere across the parking lot and Norton looked like the decision was entirely on his hand. He could let Trevor see and kill the agent along with the offer of a brand new life for him and his family or let the man go to figure out more about what he had in mind. Whatever the decision was, it had to be done fast.

“Time’s up Agent Tom Selleck, turn around and face away from me.” he waved the gun to emphasize his order and watched the other slowly following the instruction with a small snort. “Do it, now!”

“Think about it, Michael. I’m your only chance. Don’t make me regret offering this opportunity to you.”

Norton's words went through his head in a rush in between sharp flashes of pain caused by the injuries earlier. He was right about that not being him, not the reckless and pointless jobs or the being caught part. If the Feds were onto him like that, maybe Norton was right about being his only chance to make it out without going back to jail for several years of crime.

Michael pistol-whipped the man in the back of the head and watched him fall unconscious because he was also right when he said that Michael wasn’t an animal. The next time his name was called on the cold night, he was already driving towards the voice and the beaten up bloody lump that those hillbillies had turned Brad into. Trevor insisted on driving and he didn’t argue while moving to the passenger seat, drifting on his own thoughts.

A couple of days later, Michael found a ripped off page from Biography Magazine folded in half inside the mailbox of his house. He opened it to find Tom Selleck’s face alongside a cell phone number and understood that Norton wasn’t just talking shit. A few weeks later, Michael put his only suit on and drove by himself to Minot, sat on a fancy hotel bar next to the agent and heard what he had to say with the sensation of an invisible hand crushing his insides.

“You know I’m right and Philips will be the death of you one way or another,” he sipped the whiskey in front of him at the table, wiped the mustache with the back of the hand. “We do this and you won’t let it happen.”

Nine years from that day, Michael sigh turns into a grunt as he looks at the man beside him on that hill with a view of the city skyline. Fucking Trevor Philips. Why couldn’t he just drop it? What would he have to do to stop him from probing the dark corners of him? How much longer could Michael take it before becoming too much?

"The truth, huh? Do you really wanna hear it? Are you sure?" he shifts the weight on his legs, takes a deep breath trying to calm down. “Do you really want to hear that I wanted to get rid of you because I just couldn’t stand your needy attitude anymore or whatever the fuck you thought in your hazy little head that could happen between us?”

“You don’t fucking mean that!” Trevor hits the side of the car with strength enough to make it hinge again, the keys shake at the ignition. “You love to act like what we had was all in my head, but I know it wasn’t. It wasn’t just fucking, it wasn’t just the drugs, it wasn’t just cold and boredom…”

“T, for the last time, we were stupid kids!”

“You shut the fuck up and listen to me! You needed time to accept it and I gave you time, Michael. All you did was drift further until you put a wife and two kids between us. Then I gave you more time, you kept drifting away until I felt like I was losing you for good. So yeah, I pushed you harder. I thought that was how to keep you and I was scared, but don’t fucking stand here saying it was my imagination an-”

“You were going to get me killed…”

“So you were scared of me? Do you really think I would let you die, really? Mikey, I would never l-”

“But I would! I would have died for you, I would have let it happen. Don’t you get it? I would forget about all the things I had to lose and risk myself for you in a heartbeat, it didn’t matter if I died while doing it because it was you. Goddammit T, I would follow you to fucking hell." gasping for air, Michael feels his hands shaking and so it's his voice. "I wasn’t scared of you, I was scared of  _ that _ , scared of  _ me _ !”

Michael turns around to hold onto the truck to keep the hands still, looks down at the grass at his feet in hopes that would hide his face enough, cleans the throat. From the corner of his eyes, he can see Trevor letting go of his weight as he leans against the car too, a noisy breath escaping the lips as if he had just been punched. Feeling a bit nauseous, Michael had to close his eyes to continue before he lost the courage to say what had been eating him inside.

“I was scared of myself. I did it the way I did to keep me away from you and not the other way around, alright? The wife, the kids, it wasn’t planned but it didn’t make me stop wanting-” he paused to keep the voice from trembling again. “I needed to put a distance so big, an obstacle so concrete that I wouldn’t be able to cross back to you, no matter how much I wanted to. Something that couldn’t just be brushed off with an easy excuse. It had to be something so outrageous that you wouldn’t ever take me back.”

Trevor raises the hand to touch the nape of his neck but Michael shakes him off, walks closer to the spot where the hill starts to go down feeling like he couldn’t ever look at the other man again. He hasn't felt that exposed and vulnerable in years or maybe ever if he’s being honest with himself. Letting that out felt like letting out a secret he had been carrying way before even meeting Trevor and made him cringe with shame. It felt like ears burning with remorse while kneeling in front of the wooden cross in the hallway after the first time his dad heard him say  _ ‘cocksucker’ _ and shoved a soap bar so harshly in his mouth it broke his front tooth.

Once again, Trevor gives him time. When he finally gets closer it’s to push the open Redwood pack towards him. Michael snorts and takes a cigarette out of it to put on the lips, covering the flame with his hands to light it up before passing the lighter to him. It clicks twice, he curses, clicks it again. Michael pockets it with a mental note to buy a new one if this would be a new thing between them. He spends the minutes of silence wondering if there would even still be a "they" after the night was over. Everything seemed to be uncertain in his life and Michael was scared.

“Ugh!" Trevor grunts and spits on the floor, stares at the cigarette for a moment. "Why the fuck do you like this fucking thing so much? It does no good for you.”

“Why the fuck do you like me? I do no good for you.”

Trevor laughs wholeheartedly, eyes closed and head back. It’s so natural it makes Michael look at him properly. He regrets the same instant because the man takes a drag before clicking the tongue loudly.

“You really want a Vinewood movie love declaration, eh?” The smoke dances in the air before being taken by the breeze. Ignoring Michael’s pleading for him to stop, he sighs happily and raises the voice slightly. “Good thing I didn’t actually fall asleep during all those marathons…”

“-kay, whatever, go ahead,” Michael mumbles, taking his own cigarette to the lips. Trevor laughs again, knocks their shoulders together playfully. The silence stretches itself with time and Michael frowns. “Wait, you’re not doing one? It got me excited for a moment.”

“Oh, so you  _ do _ want one.”

“ _ No _ , I don’t. It’s just-”

“I knew you wanted it, I was just trying to prove my point, sugar tits.”

"-ou can do whatever you want, I don’t care…”

“Yeah, right, you look like someone who doesn't care.”

“Oh, bite me.”

This time Michael thinks he’s really not doing it. He blows the smoke from the corner of the mouth while going back to count the blinking lights in distance with mild curiosity if there would be more or less of them now it was getting late. The breeze is passing the chilling point, it’s starting to get what Los Santos people like to think that could be considered cold, but Michael doesn’t mind, he knows better.

“You know that thing people always talk about how you see your life before your eyes when you are about to die? I always thought it was bullshit.” Trevor taps the cigarette to drop some of the ashes on the grass. “I hoped it was anyway. Most things I lived I’m more than okay with not revisiting… But then there was this one time in 2006, on your birthday actually, where I managed to mix just the right amount of H and coke to numb me the fuck out. Oh Mikey, it fucked me up.”

He hums taking the last puff and flipping the stub away sending it far down the hill. Michael watches him staring ahead while being lost in the memories of a past that he made sure he wasn’t part of. Memories of when he was alone and broken because of him. The guilt stings in his throat and chest as he drops the rest of his cigarette wishing he could put down the burning ache inside of him as he does with the stud. With his free hands, Trevor's free to gesture as if he was painting a picture so Michael could see it too.

“It was the  _ perfect _ speedball. First, everything stopped hurting and then everything just stopped altogether. I mean,  _ everything _ . It was all warm white light. And there was Ma dancing in the yellow kitchen, Ryan with a kite against a pink sky. The cute little dog in one of the temporary homes in Winnipeg. Flying the Beagle for the first time…”

Trevor chuckles and looks at him, eyes glossy with tears once more. Michael remains quiet and pays attention despite the loud thumping of his heart.

“The old fucked up Futo you hated, the acid trip in Cottonmouth where we could swear the dead fish on the wall was singing Elton John. How scared you were at Lil' Probe'Inn bar and how you made me go with you to the bathroom because there were some guys dressed as aliens there, how I picked a fight with one of them. The Love Fist concert we sneaked into and you took the mosh pit too seriously…”

“Oh, the Dogs on Heat Tour? No, wait! They canceled the dates on North Yankton back in 86 so it was… The Steel Heart Stone Cold Prostate Tour! Right?”

“Yeah. You remember, eh?”

“I do remember how much you wanted to meet the guy… Willy or whatever.”

“Not Willy! It was  _ Percy _ I had a thing for and you know it,” Trevor snarls and snorts, visibly offended. “Willy has always been a sack of horse shit.”

“Percy… The kid couldn’t even figure out how to put the pants on properly.”

“You’re just jealous because I would totally shoot my love fist fuel in his mouth while Duran Duran’s song Hungry Like the Wolf played in the background.”

“Alright, okay, hilarious… I feel like we’re getting out of track here.”

“Right. Oh, wait, have I told you I actually met Willy some time ago?”

“No way! Here? In Los Santos?”

“Yeah… Punched the gold teeth out of him. He ran like the big flopping pussy I always knew he was.”

“Figures… Okay, we’re getting sidetracked again." smiling, Michael pushes Trevor off playfully. "You were actually saying something before, how did we end up drifting to a band of dicks?”

“I see what you did with the phrasing…”

Trevor nods, Michael waves him off.

“…Yeah, it was bad, never mind.”

“You know what else was bad that I thought about while I was dying? That stain on the wall in the haunted motel in Las Brujas… You couldn’t stop laughing and insisted that I looked like a sad ostrich.”

“It did!” he had totally forgotten about that, but the mention of it alone triggers the memory back and the urge to laugh. “I really did, T.”

Trevor shakes the head in denial and wipes some of the tears rolling down his face. “I thought about you resting against the car and waiting for me in front of the jail when I left, about the time I tried to teach you how to fly and we almost died, about those days at the beach, about you always dumping the green pickled peppers in my plate but keeping all the red ones for some reason…”

“They taste different…”

“You’re such a dumb ass…” he laughs, grabbing a fistful of Michael’s sleeve to shove him away but not letting go. When he speaks again his voice is barely a whisper. “There was so much you… In this fucking existence full of shit that I’ve been given, you gave me uncountable moments it was worth being born for. You, Michael Townley, are the main star of the movie of my life.”

Trevor reaches out and touches his cheek with the palm. It’s as soft as his harsh hands can be, barely pressing against the skin.

Trevor has been learning the complicated steps of this dance for so long now. Sometimes he would speed up the pace too soon, sometimes he would step into his feet, sometimes he would try to lead and fail, sometimes the rhythm would be all weird. But if he forgot the lyrics of the song, Trevor would remind him and if the words didn’t seem just right, he would make new ones.

He knows him. Knows him so well he’s expecting Michael to slap it away and run like a deer caught in headlights exactly how his body is telling him to do. Exactly how his old man’s shaped shadow is demanding him to do once again. Exactly how he had been doing for almost three decades.  _ ‘It’s so tiring, isn’t it dad? Pretending is so hard…’  _ Tracey’s voice echoes in his head,  _ ‘It’s scary to open up and be vulnerable, but I don’t want us to pretend anymore.’ _

Letting out a breath he didn’t remember he was holding, Michael closes the eyes and stops pretending. He allows himself to nuzzle the face into Trevor’s hand with eyelids tightly shut to try easing the prickly sensation behind the eyes and when the man steps closer to hold him, he doesn’t fight against it.

The fact there’s no way Trevor doesn’t know he’s actually crying buzz in the back of his mind where a voice that sounds a lot like his fathers telling him should man up. Michael’s sure they’re seconds away from a silly joke that would push him off the edge to a fit of anger in order to hide the embarrassment. The joke doesn’t come. Trevor wraps the arms around his neck and rests the head against his fingertips traveling up and down past the hairline behind his ear in a shooting way.

“I love you, Mikey. I know you can’t say it back and it's okay. I know you feel like you’re not worthy of it,” hearing that only makes him cry harder than he remembers crying for something that wasn't being beaten up into a pulp by his father. “But I do and I’ll not let you forget that.”

Trevor still doesn’t laugh. Not even when the dumb hiccup escape Michael’s lips making his ears start burning with shame or when he slides the hands-on Trevor's back and grab a fistful of the shirt like he was about to drown, when he presses their bodies as close as possible. Michael only pulls the face out of the crook of his neck after a long time, sobs and mentally curses himself for having to clean the running nose on the sleeve of his jacket suit and only does it because he really wanted to kiss Trevor.

“Fuckin’ A, my favorite suit,” without a warning and on a quick move, Trevor licks his face from chin to temple making him ew. “Stop! You’re fucking disgusting!”

Despite the grimace, Michael doesn’t pull the face away when he does it again on the other side. Instead, he laughs with him.

“Love me some tears and these are aged like expensive wine, you know…” he smirks happily and ignores how Michael squeezes his body between his arms. “Besides, your face isn't the filthiest part of you I’ve always enjoyed licking, is it?”

“Here we go with the cheap dirty talk… What’s next, role play? You’re spoiling me here, T.”

Michael touches the back of his head and remembering the days when he would dig the fingers into the long hair, let the hands rest on the sides of his ribs. He misses moments like this so much it barely feels real. Trevor presses their lips together to speak against them.

“So, cupcake… Do you really fantasize about me killing you?”

“I dream about it sometimes,” Michael grins and nods because he was right about the role-playing after all. “Have been for years now.”

“How do I do it?”

“Sometimes you break my neck, sometimes you just strangle me…”

Trevor's eyes follow the movements of the hands to his face and down to his neck, a thumb caressing the skin above the pressure point and the other resting on the hollow part between the collarbones. Michael lets him, relax in his hands feeling the goosebumps spreading everywhere. “What else?”

“Sometimes you stab me.”

He hums in delight, hoarse and low, pressing their hips together making Michael slide the hands down to grip his ass and close his eyes for a moment to focus on the other senses. Trevor bites his jawline softly and slides the cheekbone against it until he can press a kiss on the space beneath his ear. “Where do I stab you?”

“Over my chest.”

“Show me.”

Sliding the hands to his chest, Trevor opens the dress shirt Michael’s wearing slowly without taking the eyes out of his. That simple act alone makes all his skin tingle with the urgent need for the sensation of Trevor’s mouth all over him, however, the idea of having sex on the grass near the observatory only loses to the idea of doing it on his pickup truck. Michael pulls Trevor in and presses their lips together again.

“How about we wait until we get to a bed this time?”

Trevor hums again, kissing him softly while the sneaky hands make their way down to palm his boner through the expensive Ponsonbys’s pants.

“Are you sure you can wait?”

“T… Fuck.” Michael covers the hand with his own with the initial intent to pull it away but seems to forget about it with the way Trevor obscenely licks his way into his mouth for a full kiss. Snapping back out of it, he stops rubbing himself against the other’s hand. “Yeah, I don’t want a sloppy quickie. I really wanna take my time with you, you know? Like before.”

Consciously or not, Michael's thumb squeezes Trevor’s biceps where the tattoo with his name’s beneath the shirt. 

“You’re such a buzzkill, Mikey..." Trevor sighs dramatically while checking him out, licking the lips in anticipation. "Oof, fuck me.”

“I know and I will… Now stop looking at my tits.”

Trevor steals another kiss in between laughs and lets him go, taking several steps behind for a moment to cool down. Michael bottoms the shirt up again and moves to the car, but doesn’t miss how he adjusts the bulge in his pants on his way to the driver’s seat.

“Wow,” he closes the door and looks at the other man. “I’m feeling kind of lost now, like, where do we go from here?”

“Well, first we go to the nearest motel, obviously. I was thinking Eastern on Route 68. They have vibrating beds.”

“Hell no! Let's go to Crastenburg in Morningwood, near the Tivoli Cinema. But that was not what I mean, I mean in life, T. Now that you forgave me and I took a small step into not hating myself so much…”

“Is your dad still alive? You could go and…” he starts driving down the road, clicks the tongue twice and whistles. “You know.”

“Shut the fuck up! Don’t give me ideas.”

“What? It’s basically active therapy. Could be really cathartic and cleansing for you and you know I’m always down…”

“We’re not murdering my elderly father, T.”

“Okay, geez… You have a lot of work to do. Helping Tracey out, bonding with her and Jimmy again, divorcing both Amanda and that penis head Norton…”

Sinking in the seat, Michael snorts and looks out of the window to watch a plane cutting the sky towards the south.

“It’ll be easier with Amanda.”

“I’m sure it will, after all, let's be honest, you’re basically holding that poor woman hostage for 22 years.”

“Fuck you… And hang a larry here.” Trevor steals a look from him with a smile and turns left, hunks the horn after cutting a Fusilade path. “Yes, I still remember your silly lingo.”

"You're silly."

"Don't turn this into a kerfuffle." he laughs along with Michael and he can't believe how easy it feels.

“Hm! I know how we can get rid of Dave… Hear me out, are you listening?” yelling and flipping the guy behind them off before looking ahead again as if nothing had happened, Trevor shared his idea with deadpan conviction. “We can kill him.”

“We’re not killing him!” Michael laughs and shakes his head but reaches to rub his ear, rest the hand on the back of his head for a moment. “You’re the fucking worst, do you know that?”

“Let’s see if that’s what you’ll have to say when I’m sucking you off.”

“I hope it isn’t if you want to get lucky tonight, pal.”

“Do you want me to stop to get you some Viagra, you old fuck?”

“By the way, you’re taking ages to find the motel we might need it.”

“Look, I’m passing by, alright? I don’t live in this shit hole.” he drives through some rich people’s house grass almost clipping the mailbox. “If you’re too soft to keep an erection is not a problem, cupcake. I just hope you’re aware that if you can’t fuck me, I’ll be one doing the fucking.”

“Wow buddy, relax, okay? Relax. It has been a long time.”

“You better give me what I need tonight then.”

“And what about tomorrow? And the day after? What are we doing?”

Trevor grins to the road and then looks at him for a couple of seconds.

“Already making progress, Mikey. Took you longer than usual to start overthinking.” he blindly reaches for his tight, squeezing it lightly to calm him down. “What happens next I don’t know but I'll be here… Watching you closely to make sure you don’t die on me for another nine years, eh?”

Michael rolls his eyes and grunts with fake annoyance, however, when Trevor goes to move the hand away from his thigh, he stops him. Facing the window, he interlocks their fingers and the shiny moon sitting high in the sky is the only witness of his lovesick smile, not for the first time and certainly not for the last.


	22. Michael, spring/summer 2014

Like every recovery, it takes time. Some days are better than the others, but that’s just what they are, a space of 24 hours that will reset again with another chance. All this would sound like some cheap yoga cult bullshit to Michael a few months ago, but not so much anymore. He had been on the path to recovery so many times already… What could make him think this time would be different? Watching them all reunited around the mansion's dinner table, Michael realizes that the difference was on the simple fact he doesn’t feel alone anymore.

Tracey’s breathing deep, focused on trying to eat her two halves of the healthy sandwich they had made together slowly and being the banker to their Monopoly game. Jimmy’s trying to buy all the red and orange properties because according to his theory they were the most landed on. Amanda’s trying to upgrade all her shit to hotels and Trevor’s trying to keep everyone from noticing he had been moving the wrong token all this time for his best interest by talking nonstop. In their own way, they were also trying, all of them were.

In the old days, watching his family and Trevor spending time together was like standing in between two very different worlds that couldn’t coexist. The sight of it used to raise a panic of having to choose a side and that, Michael learned, would only lead to emptiness. However, when the dinner room erupts into a mixture of cheers, complaints and laughs, it hits Michael how that’s not the case anymore. It gets clear on his mind that to feel complete he needed all of them because those three were the sum of his broken parts.

Franklin had been doing an amazing job living his best life despite Tanisha still being a sore spot and Lamar's natural talent to get into trouble. When all the boys got together for drinks around his pool on warm days and bickered about silly things, the kid would roll his eyes, fingers scratching Chop’s ears while shaking the head.  _ ‘We took the biggest score in the history of scores and you bitches don’t change, huh?’ _ he’d snort, but smile fondly at the same time,  _ ‘Man, this shit is pathetic. Both of you.’ _

Parting ways with Dave had been easier than Michael expected. It happens over the phone since the man was keeping himself busy as the new host of the On The Underbelly Of Paradise filming after Steve Haines’s death. The talk is brief and makes him want to laugh when the idea that it kinda feels like some sort of break up goes through his head.

“Look after yourself, Mike.”

“You too Davey, you too.”

Really breaking up with Amanda is hard. He actually doesn’t do it for weeks. Every time he tries the words refuse to come out of his open mouth and the thoughts make him freak out so he drowns it in alcohol to feel numb like old times. Just like that, there he is, stuck back on the cycle for another whole month.

They had a big screaming match in the morning over some bullshit and avoided each other all day. It’s the end of the afternoon when she walks out of the glass doors to the patio to see him on a sunbathing chair the woman grimaces. He grunts displeased, looks down to the amber liquid to pretend he didn’t see her the same way she rehearses going back inside. Eventually, Amanda gives up, sighs loudly and he chuckles without any humor.

“How much do you need now?”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, sorry…” he watches her get closer to sit on the chair next to him. “How much do you need now,  _ honey _ ?”

“Oh fuck you, Michael,” she snatches the glass of him to finish it off herself with a frown. “You have very little of anything I may need.”

“Maybe because you sucked me dry of all that I had and not in a good way may I add.”

“Can you quit crying about your poor, miserable life for a moment? Are you even capable of noticing things are not always about you? I came here to talk about our child.”

Michael is the one sighing this time, feeling caught in his bullshit as the self-loathing high-fives with the guilt on his chest before both of them take turns kicking his insides. Great. Itching for a cigarette he was also trying to avoid all day, his voice softens.

“I’m sorry. Tracey?”

This time they were doing it right. They had a team of doctors to work with instead of that useless pube-haired shrink. When they chose to try the Family-Based Treatment to keep her from a partial hospitalization program they had gone all-in with it. Michael would do yoga with her a few times a week, helped with the logistic side of things and the planning of it. Amanda would deal with providing energy-dense meals that were prepared, served and supervised every meal, during and after by her. Some days were bumpy, some days were a disaster.

“Yeah,” the glass connects to the floor in between then when she puts it down, undoes the knot on her hair to massage the scalp. “It was a bad day.”

“Should I go check on her? I know she gets anxious when I do it but…”

“She’s sleeping now. We’ll have to talk to the psychologist to switch the medication, this one isn’t working. I think the meal planning isn’t right just yet either so you need to call our second option for a dietitian tomorrow morning.”

FBT wasn’t only about feeding and loving your kid until she recovers but also work together as a family to avoid adding up to their stress. That meant no more fights or name callings or broken dishes between the De Santas, nothing that could trigger her in any form. That also meant they had failed her once more.

“Fuck, ‘Manda… We did this, didn’t we? All that fighting today?”

“Yes, we did.”

“Fuck… I’m scared.”

“Me too.”

He stops rubbing his face tiredly to look back at her and she does the same with a tiny nod. A small frown appears in the space between her eyes as she reaches out to touch his face and swipes something off his cheek with the thumb making him realize he was crying. Again. He had allowed himself to do it once and now it seems like he would never keep them from rolling like before. He wasn’t getting used to it yet. It still made him feel dumb and weak like a little stupid boy that he shouldn't be, couldn’t allow himself to be.

“Michael, we…”

“We have to stop, don’t we?”

“I think we need to.”

Neither knows how to express the avalanche of feelings crushing them with the final realization it was over. They have been throwing the ball between each other to see who would be one to drop it for so long now and the clean, lucid realization that both of them were ready to put it down was somewhat disconcerting. The couple hold hands and just sit there staring at the mansion where their two kids slept on their beds, silently reminiscing the path that led them to that exact moment in time.

With the surprise, there’s also a heavy sense of grief taking place on Michael when his eyes drop from the house to the woman who had been his partner over the last two decades. Being able to witness Amanda go from 8 hours shifts as a stripper in the middle of nowhere to making up meals with whatever they had available in that shitty trailer house with two small children to accept dropping everything and run away with him for a better life… It had been a journey and how lucky he had been to have her. To recognize glimpses of her strength, courage and resilience in Tracey and Jimmy as they grew up would always be reminders that he had made at least some right choices in his life.

Damn, where would he be without Amanda? She did have her flaws and broke her vows and lied and cheated and spent more than needed, but honestly, so did he. Even with all his issues and dangerous lifestyle, she never sold him out to the Feds, which was more than anyone could say about him. Amanda deserved better, could do better, but chose him despite everything and Michael knows that if it wasn’t for her pushing him, by encouragement at the beginning or by threats at the end line, by doing some damage control when needed, things would be over for him years ago.

He stands up and pulls her with him to hold her in an embrace she melts into and they stay like that for a long time. Michael presses a kiss to her cheek and another one on her forehead. She looks up to him with tears rolling down to the chin, sliding the hands along his sides to wrap the arms around his waist on a tight hug.

“Guess we can say I can still get you wet somehow, huh?”

“You wish you could, darling, and so do I.” they laugh and she tiptoes to kiss his cheek, wipe the tears away with the back of the hand as she pulls away. “Listen, you fall asleep out here and I’ll push the chair into the pool tomorrow. That's your one and only warning.”

“Oh ‘Manda, what am I going to do without you?”

Halfway through the door, Amanda flips the long dark hair back to look at him over the shoulder and flashes a real smile. It's like a movie of their youth replaying before his eyes.

“I guess you’ll have to figure it out, won’t you, Michael?”

Months later when they go to Chébs Eaterie for dinner to celebrate the signing of the divorce papers her hair is shorter than he has ever seen, the corners of her lips curl on easy smiles as she talks about finally getting in contact with her sister after years since the fight that pushed them apart from each other. The plan was to meet her somewhere in Alderney where she lived with her family and then, by the end of the week, go visit their parents together whatever they were living now.

“Send your mom and sister a hug for me. Well, maybe not your sister, she hates me.” they click the wine glasses together and she giggles. “I can stay with the kids.”

“Thank you, Michael. It’s a relief to know you’ll watch our grown-up children while I’m out of town.” he shakes the head dismissing how much fun she’s having at his expanse. "Don't worry so much. Tracey's on a good streak right now and the doctor said we should give her some of her autonomy back, just make sure to keep the supervision. Oh and please don't let her have a huge tattoo on her back or gang signs of any kind." 

"Not even pistol wings? A massive spider on the neck?" he drinks up before signaling for the waiter and Amanda reaches out to pat him on the shoulder as the young man approaches stealing her attention. Michael puts the menu down, scratches the beard. “Can we have another bottle of… Uhm, any recommendations?”

“Special day for the couple?”

“Yes,” she puts the elbow on the table and rests the chin on top of the fist looking up at the waiter. “We just got divorced so I really want a big celebration, you know? Can you help me with that?”

Michael opens the mouth but Amanda kicks him underneath the table without breaking eye contact with the guy that’s smirking as if he had just won the lottery, she tucks a lock of hair behind the ear.

“I sure can, Miss… How about a Cabernet Sauvignon?”

“I would love to taste that.”

“I’ll get it ready for you then.”

When he turns around she checks his ass for ten seconds before hissing, turns her face back to Michael and mouths a silent  _ ‘Oh my God’  _ and takes a big sip of her wine.

"Look, I skipped my Pilates class this morning but seems like I'll be doing all my squats tonight."

“What the fuck, Amanda! Really?”

“Don’t even start, Michael. If it was a young, slutty, female waiter or a balder, junkie, hobo-looking guy you would be all horny too.”

“Yeah… To be fair, T figured out how to use a dishwasher so my guess it’s that a couple more weeks and he’ll manage the washing machine.” he rests against the back of the chair and looks to the people chatting among themselves across the restaurant while she adjusts the cleavage of the silky dark green dress to show more of her boobs. “What did I do to deserve the two of you?”

“You mostly just got lucky, babe, and beggars simply cannot be choosers.”

Michael slowly learns to accept that as truth just like he learns to accept many new things in his life. The new doctor he has been consulting with deserves a lot of credit for it. The idea of going back to therapy, opening up to a new strange person in hopes they would care enough to try helping him fix his old fucked up traumas from the past was almost too scary after Dr. Friedlander. It didn't seem worth it. Michael probably wouldn’t have done it ever again if it wasn't for Tracey.

He met Dr. Wankum at the family-based therapy where he, Amanda and even Jimmy went for a visit to learn about how to help Tracey during her long recovering process towards reaching and maintaining a healthier state. The guy was good, patient and clear, his breath always smells as if he had feasted on a pile of cow shit, but he was good. He was also an old man who loved wearing stupid berets. Michael wanted to slap out of his head every once in a while for an unknown reason.

The reason gets pretty clear after a session that ends up with him screaming  _ ‘I’m not your fucking punching bag anymore, dad!’ _ so loud his throat hurts. Dr. Wankum squeezes his shoulder at the door and tells Michael he’s proud of him. Michael stops the car at some parking lot in Little Seoul to cry and laugh for a good half hour straight like a fucking maniac. Before he even notices, the motives that culminated in his divorce start getting explored and the sneaky old man pokes and digs around with care and attention to his every reaction.

“Do you have someone in your life right now?”

“What do you mean?” he deflects to gain some time, looks down at the seam of the armchair while tracing the path with his fingertip.

“Are you in love with someone, Michael?”

“Love?” he snorts and tries to pull out the tight threat holding the two pieces together. “I don’t know if I can call it like that, doc… He’s... Uhm, T's more of a rash I can’t get rid of.”

The other man hums and nods. “What would you call it?”

“Infatuation, maybe? That’s different. Right?”

“It certainly is. Infatuation is idealistic, based on feelings, there’s this need to get something from another person and it’s all about emotions.” Dr. Wankum sinks on his armchair while tapping the pen against the chin. “Love is gradual, based on commitment, strengthened by separation. Love is realistic and selfish, it’s all about devotion."

"Oh... Right, uhm, so, yeah..."

"Good, seems like you got your answer." he smiles as an incentive. "So tell me Michael, which one of these sets of traits do you recognize in your relationship with T?”

"Excuse me?" Michael chuckles and frowns, shakes the head while holding the hands up to show him the palms. "How... I-I never said anything about Trevor, I-"

"You did, actually. You said it was a 'he' and then proceeded to say  _ 'T's more of a rash I can't get rid of' _ , remember?"

“Fuck… I guess I did, huh?” Looking back at the old doctor in shock for how the words had slipped out of him like water between fingers, Michael widened his eyes and covered his mouth with his hand. “Fuck!”

Pleased with himself and honestly a bit smugly, Dr. Wankum points the pen towards him and winks. Michael leaves the session being clapped on the back like it was 1981 again and the man was his coach. It felt like he was back at the football fields after winning a game. It felt like feeling good about himself and like always, it ended too fast. The feeling lasts only until the next session.

Michael vents about an explosive discussion with Trevor about the same old things, paces around complaining how it seems they would never stop running in circles because the other man was so damn stubborn. The doctor waits for the mental breakdown to be over only to destroy his entire list of arguments with a simple conclusion – Michael expected life and love like the ones in the classic Vinewood when the truth was that real people, and especially people who had been damaged by harsh life experiences, can only live and love how they learned to do until that moment. The good news was that it's never late for learning new ways if there's the will to do so. Those words stick to him week after week after week.

Another thing Dr. Wankum helped Michael to understand was why he had pushed the most important people of his life away for so long while trying to keep his distance and being heartless.  _ ‘This great researcher named Brené Brown said that narcissism can be considered a shame-based fear of being ordinary and undeserving of love, undeserving of belonging or of having a purpose.’ _ he had explained on what had been a somber day for Michael,  _ ‘You’ve been so afraid of being rejected like you were by your father that you learned that the best way to protect yourself is rejecting everyone first’. _

He was working to change that ever since, break those convictions and relearn, hoping it wouldn’t be too late, begging for not having passed the same kind of sick mentality to his children. It had been extremely good and rewarding to reconnect with the two. Even if it was still really challenging at times, they were working on getting to know each better, finding things to bond over.

Spending a day at the Chiliad Mountain State Wilderness, however, wasn’t being it. So much for listening to Trevor about anything. Despite having assured him how they wouldn’t mess up with their number one investor, Michael wonders if maybe that was all a part of Trevor's plan to sell them to those nutcases altruists who lived at the headquarters at the top.

Tracey was adjusting the Bishop's Chicken cap Trevor had handed to her earlier when he noticed by the rearview mirror the way she was anxiously combing the hair to cover the few bald spots remaining. Using the hair down for the day was her idea and despite being such an ordinary thing in Michael's eyes, he understood at the moment she smiled at Trevor how much of a big step it was for her.

“You really don’t think that dress I chose for Maisy’s party isn’t too much?”

“If I thought it was bad I wouldn’t have bought one to myself.” Trevor points out and the girl hums in agreement. “Don’t worry about that. You’re 23, you shouldn’t be going to a party dressed as a nun. You and your friends can dress as slutty as you’d like…”

“I don’t know about that, T.”

Waving him off, the other man steps forward to block him from Tracey’s view and keep their conversation going without his interference. Michael grunts and passes them to walk alongside Jimmy who would probably be attached to the cell phone until the signal eventually dies. It works for Michael because from where they are he can still hear the other two chatting even while pretending he doesn’t care about it anymore.

“Yes, you can! I’ll be at the bar so nobody will try anything and if they do, trust me, I know how to fight.”

“Fine, I’m just not sure if it’s a good idea taking you near my friends ever again to be honest.”

“Are you finally realizing how embarrassing it is to walk around with him?” he calls back with a smirk, teasing the other man. She looks up from the grass to him and shakes the head. "Told you it would happen eventually, T."

“Him? My friends are the embarrassing ones! I don’t think I can take fucking Rachel talking about all the things she would let uncle T do to her anymore. And she's like one of those friends who share too much detail so... It's really awkward.”

Michael makes a face and Trevor guffaws in delight, both holding the middle finger up to the other for a moment until Jimmy curses and slips on the dirt. He whines and pat the dirt off the clothes after getting help from his father to stand back up. Trevor stretches with a smug grin across the face.

“Well, this city’s overloaded with plastic copies of boy band kids whose balls didn’t even drop yet so when a girl like your friend sees what a real man looks like it’s only natural she will experience a full-blown ravishing sexual awakening.”

“Damn, uncle T…” Jimmy accommodated the bag better on the shoulder with a nod, cell phone finally put away. “I wish I was this confident.”

Michael squeezes his son’s shoulder and sighs. “Unfortunately for Rachel, if she’s not over 60 years old, Trevor isn’t really interested.”

“You guys are just jealous.” They keep walking until Michael points to a nice meadow ahead, adjusting his backpack too and snorting while looking at Tracey. “Yes dad, jealous. You because you’re not their favorite anymore and Jimmy because he has no chances with any of them.”

“Nah, this actually gives me hope. I mean, if Rachel looks at an old weird mess like him of all people and gets horny… I’m pretty sure I still have chances. No offense, uncle T.”

“Oh my God James, that was rude.”

Tracey pinches his arm and he rubs the skin with a pout.

“But I apologized!”

“That doesn’t make it okay!”

“Of course it does! If not, then what’s the point of the word?”

"Why don't you tell Rachel that dad called dibs on him 30 years ago and she's out of luck?" 

"Do you think that would stop her? She would probably want to... Ew, I can't say it."

The siblings go on the rest of the way chatting and playfully bickering back and forth between them like they used to before reaching the age where everything became a competition and Trevor and Michael exchange a smile. Maybe the idea of going there wasn’t so bad after all.

Michael only had taken his gun to the fun day in the woods because despite not being hunting season, the place was known for having cougars all year around. Trevor had taken his because well, it’s Trevor. The idea of a family shooting practice activity comes from Jimmy as a joke as he laughs about how mad mom would be if she found out which only makes Trevor more excited about going ahead with it. He talks and talks about how it was a shame that Michael had never taught them, how they might have his accuracy skills all along without even knowing.

“I don’t wanna brag or anything, but I’m really good at spitting bubblegum from the middle of our living room to the trash can in the kitchen. I’ve done it many times and nailed it.”

“Wow, you’re so talented.”

Jimmy ignores his sister and elbows Trevor who’s sipping a beer, points at his dad with a smug smirk. “I don’t think pops got it anymore, man.”

“You’re right, Jimbo. He’s washed up.”

“You two are so funny…”

Michael swifts the weight from one leg to the other and decides not to fall for it. Tracey squeezes his shoulder gently with a smile.

“It’s alright, you just don’t wanna make a fool out of yourself and that’s fine.”

“You know what?” he moves to grab the handgun from the bag while the other three laugh. “Fuck all of you, let dad show how’s done…”

He has to admit that even though he had been reluctant to share this with his children, it felt good. At first, just because seeing the excited and surprised faces every time he hit a target they had challenged him with made him feel like some sort of superhero, the praises keeping his ego well fed. But also because it was a nice moment between them, where despite hoping neither would ever need to use that knowledge, he was actually being useful and passing something on. It was fucked up that shooting was the one thing he was brilliant at but it was a fact he couldn’t change and now he was sharing that with the two of them.

“Take these and run as far as you can, when I whistle you throw them up high one after the other, okay?”

Tracey picks the empty bottles from Trevor before he puts them in her brother's hands and starts running. “I’m thinner, I’ll get there faster.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny!”

Michael gets ready under the attentive stare of Jimmy and Trevor’s whistle echoes through the woods. He rolls the neck and aims, squeezes the trigger, the bottles explode into a rain of glass one by one. The boy’s cheering and clapping and when Tracey comes back she jumps at his arms for a hug. Michael waves off the applause with a wave and a smile. 

“Okay, who wants to go next?”

For someone that had been so excited until that moment, Jimmy hesitates when Michael loads a new clip and holds it out for him to grab it. He blabbers about the model of the gun and some of the history and when Trevor asks how the fuck does he knows all that, the boy says video games can be quite educative. Michael shakes the head with a chuckle, Trevor snorts.

“Alright, nerd.”

“Come on, mini Lester, give yourself a chance.”

Eventually, Jimmy tries and he’s really bad at it. At some point, Michael starts getting really frustrated because his son really is his mom's child and doesn’t know how to stop whining and complaining for a second just like Amanda used to do to get under his skin. He’s about to start raising his voice when Trevor rubs his back to handle him a beer, the eyes silently asking if he needs to step away for a moment.

He takes Michael's place beside Jimmy and the boy follows the instructions from him with extreme caution, may be out of fear or maybe Trevor is just that good. When he’s slightly shaking to press the trigger, Trevor puts his hands on his shoulder to help make it steady. It helps a little and the boy’s happy with taking a break after grazing the target they had set. Tracey on the other hand… Hitting the mark on the tree Trevor had called only encourages her to keep taking shots that improve quickly, after ten minutes the hands are holding the gun firmly and with confidence. After twenty minutes she whispers with Trevor before running to where Michael’s drinking his second beer, brings the palms together on a praying stance saying  _ ‘can I please try the shotgun,’ _ she gives little jumps in place,  _ ‘please, dad?’ _ .

Jimmy’s not happy, but when Trevor asks if he wants to try it too, he shakes the head in refusal. The mood lights up considerably when Michael passes him a beer despite Trevor disapproving click of tongue on his way to pick up the shotgun. “Somewhere out there Amanda’s shaking the head at your actions, you know…”

“What, you two make each other weekly reports now?”

“Maybe we do Mikey and I want you to know I’ll remember this.”

“Come one, uncle T…” Jimmy opens the bottle with a wriggle of eyebrows. “You forget a thousand things everyday…”

“…Make sure this is one of ‘em.” Tracey finishes for her brother, hands resting at the waist.

The siblings crack themselves up and high five while the two men look at each other with raised eyebrows even if they're both smiling, Trevor nods towards them.

“See what you’ve done with these kids? Huh? Are you proud of yourself?”

“Kinda, yeah…”

He winks and Trevor pushes him off playfully while calling him a turd. Jimmy takes a long sip and celebrates, forgetting about the rest completely while picking up the phone to take some pictures that would probably end up on his Life Invader or something that would end up giving away the secret before they even left those woods.

For a minute Michael’s head takes him back to the Big Talk he and Trevor had by the Observatory and how the man had talked about life replaying at the end like a movie. He thought about that a lot since then. At the very moment, Michael’s sure that scene of the three of them joking around is going to be one of those he’ll be seeing again one day. Another great memory with Trevor to go along with the many others collected all these years, some of them where Michael just secretly stared at him being completely unaware of his magnetic presence. As he was flying a plane, as he reloaded the rifle, as he danced at clubs, as he woke up in motel beds, at Lester’s safe houses… And the times Trevor caught him staring, only to flip him off with a smirk.

Just like he does when sees he’s staring from his place next to Tracey as Michael gets closer to join them.

He tries to argue against it for a while before giving in, then he tries to remember what he had heard on therapy about stopping trying to control everything, allow the kids to make their own mistakes and learn from it. He can get a pack of ice ready for her when they go back home, it would be fine, she would be fine.

“Into the shoulder, against your cheek… Yeah.”

“Am I going to fall back?”

“Nope,” Michael twisted her slightly to stabilize her body better. “We got you.”

Tracey smiles at him and in an unintentionally identical motion, rolls the neck so similar to Michael that makes both men speechless. When the shot goes off Trevor howls in excitement, doesn’t even mind trying to hide the teary eyes. Michael manages to blink the unexpected burning sensation on his. Tracey rubs the shoulder.

“This really fucking hurts… But I kinda loved it!”

“You get used to the pain after a while.”

Trevor steals the beer from Michael and takes a long sip after sitting down against a tree, free hand massaging the knee with the palm like he had been doing more and more these days.

Michael was getting used to that sight too just like he was getting used to waking up in his new house at Del Perro Beach to sometimes find Trevor with glasses on, trying to read things on the screen of the cell phone. By the way he still had to squint and hold the thing close to the face, he hadn’t actually got them by prescription, but rather by stealing from some poor soul. Still, apart from some occasional teasing, Michael wouldn’t make fun of him. That and the pains came from the lack of the usual amount of speed he had been addicted to until recently. Even the smallest withdrawal would show its effects.

Being aware of more signs of dehydration after learning from Tracey helped Michael to notice the symptoms of it soon. Even if the girl had made friends at the group therapy meetings after relapsing badly on phase 3 of FBT and going back to phase 1 all over again, the buddy system they had ended up helping him too. She was reworking her relationship with food and was excited with the idea she could help him do the same so they would improve together.

Sometimes he would get stomach aches and nauseous, sometimes he would leave the sheets damp with sweat and start pacing around the house at 3 AM until Michael grabbed his trembling hands to guide him outside and they would walk by the shore all the way up North Chumash and back. As he curled inside of his arms to finally sleep, Michael could see that not feeling invincible had been taking a toll on Trevor and age was catching up to him too. Jumping off moving trains and planes wasn’t that easy anymore, it took longer to heal, it left painful marks.

The nightmares were back too. Many nights while spending the night, Trevor would scare the shit out of him. Michael would open the eyes to find the other man barely blinking at him, the lost expression giving away how his mind was a nudge from despair. Took a few times for Michael to understand that in those moments, Trevor thought he was a hallucination. It made him sick to think how many times that had happened back in the days, for how many years a hallucination was all he was for him.

Sometimes Michael would be the one waking up with the ghost of a scream hurting the throat and while reaching for the gun at the nightstand he would find Trevor’s hand on the way. After the breathing had calmed down, Trevor fingers would reach to poke his sides making him squirm and laugh or travel down straight to his cock making him sigh and hum. Just like that, the past would stop being a cruel tormentor and turn into nothing but a path that had led them to that very moment of bliss.

Sometimes, however, Trevor would arrive covered in dirt, blood and bruises. Usually, Michael would wait until he had stopped pacing like a caged animal, blabbering curses and madness. When his hand would raise to hit himself in the forehead, he would step in, hold him still.

‘ _ I’ll never take my foot off the gas!’ _ he had screamed at him a couple of months ago during an argument,  _ ‘I’m putting it down, I’m crashing into a wall!’  _ Michael would remember every time and try not to think about it, try not to be selfish.  _ ‘It never gets easier or less scary for me,’ _ Mrs. Madrazo had told him once in Sandy Shores,  _ ‘but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make for him’  _ so he bites back the words he wanted to say.  _ ‘Love is all about devotion’ _ Dr. Wankum said to him once so he cleans Trevor wounds and body in silence.

But one day Trevor leaves a trail of blood on the way to the bathroom and Michael finds him sitting at the edge of the bathtub with a face so beaten up he can barely open his eyes. He lifts the shirt to see a huge cut that goes from the side of his ribs to the middle of his chest and it makes his body boil with anger. Michael’s hands don’t shake as he cleans the cut to stitch it back up because it isn’t as deep as it looks, because he’s going to be okay, but what if he wasn’t so lucky next time?

He sits back on the heels of his foot after finishing, rubs the eyes with the back of the thumbs feeling a headache before realizing he had smeared blood on himself too. All there’s going through his mind is how there’s nothing that would make him happier and calmer than walking to the bedroom, grab a rifle and go out there hunt the son of a bitch who had done that because he's sure he would find him. Yes, Michael would find him and put a bullet into his knees, to his elbows and one on his stomach so he could pass the finger through the skin and rip it open enough to reach inside his body with the entire hand. He would grope for his heart and squeeze it until it exploded while he watched his face. Just one more night like this and Michael wouldn't be able to control himself and if one more night turned out to be one night too late... If he loses Trevor now...

This is too much. It’s getting out of hand again and if it keeps going like that…

“You’re going to crash into a wall, T.” Michael laughs, turning into a tired sigh as he holds back angry tears. “And I really don’t know if I can keep watching while you do it. I’m tired of this shit.”

There it was, brewing inside of him through his narrowed eyes, every little contraction of the facial muscles on his expression giving it away, the cloudy haze he gets into when his rational mind is slipping away. Something clicks, breaks and Trevor’s on rage mode.

“Why am I not surprised? You start seeing Doctor Handjob, connecting some dots of your life together and suddenly you feel like you’re better than me, don’t you? You judgmental turd!”

He stands up with some effort, leaving a red handprint at the door frame when he stumbles out of the bathroom to the living room.

“Don’t put words in my mouth! You come to my house in these states and expect me to do what? Kiss you in the head and fix everything?”

Michael follows him, feeling the jaw clench so tight it hurts, open the arms with the palms turned up as the other man holds the dressings and paces. The free hand points a finger to him when he snarls.

“That’s the problem, isn't it? I’m a burden to you!”

“No, you fucking moron! You’re my best friend and I’m saying this because I care! I’m trying to-”

“Well, I’m trying too!”

Trevor screams so loud he loses balance and the only reason why he doesn’t fall is that his body hits the back of the couch.

“I’m trying, Mikey…” his voice is softer this time and Michael relaxes the shoulder a bit as he steps closer to him. “I swear that I’m.”

“I see what you’re doing for Tracey and-”

“It’s not just for her. It’s for all of you. I didn’t have a reason to try before… " some tears roll down his face when he frowns, grunts and moves the hands across the bandages. "And now you’re going to take it away from me again. Just like you did back then, you fucking snake!"

"You better fucking drop this shit! We're passing this, T. I'm not taking anything from you."

"You said it! You said you’re tired."

"Because it's exhausting! I'm trying to get better and you-"

"I hold you back, right?" Trevor's breathing's ragged and he slouches forward with another whimper of pain, but when Michael tries to get closer the other man holds the hand up to stop him. "I always did, I always held you back, slowed you down."

"Calm the fuck down, you're acting like a maniac right now." impatient for not being able to help him, Michael runs back of the hand through the forehead trying to keep from raising the voice to match his. "You don't even let me speak and keep assuming things."

"You said it! You're tired and you’re going to leave again and I-”

“That was not what I said, T. I’m not going anywhere. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you did! You hate me, don’t you Michael? You hate me and you wish I was dead!”

“I fucking love you, you stupid cunt!” he shouts back so loud he vibrates, doesn’t know if the reason why it feels like he’s burning in fever is anger or because of the words that had finally left his mouth. He tries repeating them as loud as before to make sure his stupid ass hears it too. “I love you…”

After all those years, there it was. It barely felt real. Michael’s so caught by surprise he doesn’t even think about his father and his wrath, just chuckles to himself while basking into the sensation of feeling free of a huge weight he had been dragging around like an anvil. Trevor smiles as big as ever across from him despite the tears still rolling down the eyes, smears blood on the couch too.

“There’s nothing I would like more than to run to the freeway and scream from the top of my lungs right now, but I think I’m going to pass out.”

Michael manages to cross the distance between them in time to keep Trevor from falling. He carefully drags him to the other side of the couch, dropping his new Taylor guitar he had been practicing with Tracey earlier on the floor to create space for both of them down. He gives up trying to keep the blood from staining everything, fuck it, he would buy another to replace it.

As Michael’s checking for his temperature and heartbeats, Trevor gasps and looks at him as if he had woken up from a dream. Michael startles and curses him for it.

“I died! That biker cocksucker killed me, eh? I can’t believe it.”

“No, T.” he rests his head against the fist while looking at him, rolling his eyes when see he's getting all jittery again. “Nobody killed you today.”

“Oh… 2005 then? Yeah, that overdose killed me didn’t it? Goddammit.”

“Trevor! I’m going to fucking kill you myself if you don’t relax!”

His expressions soften and the body obeys, relaxes again allowing Michael to pull him back to rest against the cushions properly. Trevor turns to him with a hiss, nuzzles closer so his forehead is almost touching Michael’s arm.

“Say it again.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you myself.”

“Not that, fat fuck.”

Michael pokes the sore and already bruised spot over his cheekbone to hear him grunting in pain, but strokes his jaw as gently as he can right after.

“I love you.”

Michael feels warm all over realizing it gets a bit easier to say every time. It surprises him how whispering feels different than screaming it and he gets excited to discover how all the other ways of saying can awake new sensations in him.

"Again."

"Does it keep you awake?"

"What?"

"I was a fat-headed guy, full of pain. But I loved you long ago and all the time, since the beginning."

"Is this a movie line? I swear to God, Mikey..."

"Yeah, sorry," he chuckles and lets Trevor hold his wrist to guide his hand down to his own chest, right above the heart. "It's from Notorious, 1946."

"I don't fucking care. Say it again."

"It's from-"

" _ Mikey! _ "

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.” his heart thumps underneath the palm, strong and fast. “Are you having a heart attack?”

“I think so.”

“It took me three decades to finally be capable of saying it so you better stay alive to listen to it, asshole. That’s why shit like this-” he runs the fingertips across the bandages. “Look, we got a second chance at this. Who gets second chances, huh?”

He nods, understanding. When he talks again his voice is a whisper as if he was afraid of speaking louder and the eyes remain focused on one of the bottoms of Michael’s shirt. “What if it’s too late? I’m too fucked up, man. I don’t know how to be… Different. From this. How to be… Normal.”

“I don’t need you to be normal, T." he goes to hit himself in the head again but Michael stops him in time, holding his bloody hand in between him that wasn't looking any cleaner. "I just need you to be here, with me. With us. We can make our own normal as we go.”

Trevor places their fingers together and tugs it twice for Michael to lean closer and meet his lips halfway for a kiss. They only break apart when he grunts in pain after getting too excited and forgetting about the injuries while trying to straddle Michael.

“Stupid stitches…”

Falling back to the coach doesn’t help and mumbling how dumb he is, Michael has to check to see if none of the stitches had open up. Trevor keeps quiet and stares at him.

“Do you mean that, then? You haven't had enough of me yet?”

“T…” Michael shakes the head with a frown. “I think I need a couple of lifetimes more before it happens.”

With the chest feeling too tight for all those goddamn feelings, Michael wishes they could do it all over again, press the rewind button of their own fucking movie. He remembers what the doctor said about not expecting a Vinewood type of life or love and realizes how that was their own way of loving, the crooked story about the love of the crooked kind. 

“Let’s do it then.”

“Really? Do you think it can be that easy?”

“It doesn’t matter how it is, I’ll find you and I’ll get you.”

“Great, sounded just like the fucking lunatic stalker you are.”

It makes him laugh because of course, every sort of romantic moment between them would always also be some level of fucked up. Trevor pulls him closer again.

“So a couple of lifetimes, eh?” he snorts, smiles against Michael's lips when he can’t resist, and leans in to steal another kiss. “Was that another quote from one of your films?”

“I guess that now it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there it is! i had so much fun writing this, honestly, i hope you had some fun too.  
> comment your favorite part!!! scream about it, smash your hands on the keyboard, ask me about shit i didnt made clear enough, call me out for spelling mistakes, anything really, did it make you laugh? cry? punch a pillow? facepalm? i need to know so just TALK TO ME ABOUT IT, LET A SISTER KNOW OK? ilu, you can find me at kingofthings on tumblr and that's it. thanks for coming to my ted talk <3


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